[177] "A greater and more universal hatred," says Northumberland in a letter to Leicester, Nov. 13, 1640 (_Sidney Papers_, ii. 663), "was never contracted by any person than he has drawn upon himself. He is not at all dejected, but believes confidently to clear himself in the opinion of all equal and indifferent-minded hearers, when he shall come to make his defence. The king is in such a straight that I do not know how he will possibly avoid, without endangering the loss of the whole kingdom, the giving way to the remove of divers persons, as well as other things that will be demanded by the parliament. After they have done questioning some of the great ones, they intend to endeavour the displacing of Jermyn, Newcastle, and Walter Montague." [178] Clarendon, i. 305. No one opposed the resolution to impeach the lord lieutenant, save that Falkland suggested the appointment of a committee, as more suitable to the gravity of their proceedings. But Pym frankly answered that this would ruin all; since Strafford would doubtless obtain a dissolution of the parliament, unless they could shut him out from access to the king. _The Letters of Robert Baillie_, Principal of the University of Glasgow (two vols. Edinburgh, 1775), abound with curious information as to this period, and for several subsequent years. Baillie was one of the Scots commissioners deputed to London at the end of 1640, and took an active share in promoting the destruction of episcopacy. His correspondence breathes all the narrow and exclusive bigotry of the presbyterian school. The following passage is so interesting that, notwithstanding its length, it may find a place here:--