1. _The Kentish Petition_, drawn up at the Maidstone Assizes by the gentry, ministry, and commonalty of Kent, praying for the preservation of episcopal government, and the settlement of religious differences by a synod of the clergy (April 17th, 1642). The petition was couched in very strong language; and Professor Gardiner is probably right in saying that it was the condemnation of this famous petition which rendered civil war inevitable. 2. _A True Relation of the Proceedings of the Scots and English Forces in the North of Ireland._ This was thought to be dishonouring to the Scots, and was accordingly ordered to be burnt (June 8th, 1642). 3. _King James: his Judgment of a King and a Tyrant_ (September 12th, 1642). 4. _A Speedy Post from Heaven to the King of England_ (October 5th, 1642). 5. _Letter from Lord Falkland_ to the Earl of Cumberland, concerning the action at Worcester (October 8th, 1642). Thus did Parliament, and the House of Commons especially, improve upon the precedent first set by the Star Chamber; and the practice must soon have somewhat lost its force by the very frequency of its repetition. David Buchanan's _Truth's Manifest_, containing an account of the conduct of the Scotch nation in the Civil War, was condemned to be burnt by the hangman (April 13th, 1646), but may still be read. _An Unhappy Game at Scotch and English_, pamphlets like the _Mercurius Elenchicus_ and _Mercurius Pragmaticus_, the _Justiciarius Justificatus_, by George Wither, perished about the same time in the same way; and in 1648 such profane Royalist political squibs as _The Parliament's Ten Commandments_; _The Parliament's Pater Noster, and Articles of the Faith_; and _Ecce the New Testament of our Lords and Saviours, the House of Commons at Westminster, or the Supreme Council at Windsor_, were, for special indignity, condemned to be burnt in the three most public places of London. The observance of Sunday has always been a fruitful source of contention, and in 1649 the chief magistrates in England and Wales were ordered by the House of Commons to cause to be burnt all copies of James Okeford's _Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment, deformed by Popery, reformed and restored to its primitive purity_ (March 18th, 1650). They did their duty so well that not a copy appears to survive, even in the British Museum. The author, moreover, was sentenced to be taken and imprisoned; so thoroughly did the spirit of persecution take possession of a Parliamentary majority when the power of it fell into their hands.