Charles found his position in no respect improved by the execution of Strafford. The Commons, finding their influence and power increasing, grew more and more bold, and were from this time so absorbed in the events connected with the progress of their quarrel with the king, that they left Laud to pine in his prison for about four years. They then found time to act over again the solemn and awful scene of a trial for treason before the House of Peers, the passing of a bill of attainder, and an execution on Tower Hill. Laud was over seventy years of age when the ax fell upon him. He submitted to his fate with a calmness and heroism in keeping with his age and his character. He said, in fact, that none of his enemies could be more desirous to send him out of life than he was to go. CHAPTER IX. CIVIL WAR. 1641-1646 Increasing demands of the Commons.--The king gradually loses his power.--The king determines to change his policy.--The king sends his officers to the House.--The king goes to the House himself.--The king's speech in the House.--Great excitement in the House.--The speaker's reply.--Results of the king's rashness.--Committee of the Commons.--The king goes to London.--Cries of the people.--Preparations to escort the committee to Westminster.--Report of the committee.--Alarm of the king.--The king yields.--Increasing excitement.--Civil war.--Its nature.--Cruelties and miseries of civil war.--Taking sides between the king and Parliament.--Preparations for war.--Fruitless negotiations.--Messages between the king and Parliament.--Ravages of the war.--Death of Hampden.--Prince Rupert.--His knowledge and ingenuity.--Progress of the war.--Difficulty of making peace.--The women clamor for peace.--Queen Henrietta's arrival in England.--The vice-admiral cannonades the queen.--The queen's danger.--She seeks shelter in a trench.--The queen joins her husband.--Her influence.--The royal cause declines.--The Prince of Wales.--Hopeless condition of the king.--Invasion by the Scots.--The king surrenders to the Scots.--End of the civil war. The way in which the king came at last to a final rupture with Parliament was this. The victory which the Commons gained in the case of Strafford had greatly increased their confidence and their power, and the king found, for some months afterward, that instead of being satisfied with the concessions he had made, they were continually demanding more. The more he yielded, the more they encroached. They grew, in a word, bolder and bolder, in proportion to their success. They considered themselves doing the state a great and good service by disarming tyranny of its power. The king, on the other hand, considered them as undermining all the foundations of good government, and as depriving him of personal rights, the most sacred and solemn that could vest in any human being.