The dissolution of a parliament was always to the prerogative what the dispersion of clouds is to the sun. As if in mockery of the transient obstruction, it shone forth as splendid and scorching as before. Even after the exertions of the most popular and intrepid House of Commons that had ever met, and after the most important statute that had been passed for some hundred years, Charles found himself in an instant unshackled by his law or his word; once more that absolute king, for whom his sycophants had preached and pleaded, as if awakened from a fearful dream of sounds and sights that such monarchs hate to endure, to the full enjoyment of an unrestrained prerogative. He announced his intentions of government for the future in a long declaration of the causes of the late dissolution of parliament, which, though not without the usual promises to maintain the laws and liberties of the people, gave evident hints that his own interpretation of them must be humbly acquiesced in.[1] This was followed up by a proclamation that he "should account it presumption for any to prescribe a time to him for parliament, the calling, continuing, or dissolving of which was always in his own power; and he should be more inclinable to meet parliament again, when his people should see more clearly into his intents and actions, when such as have bred this interruption shall have received their condign punishment." He afterwards declares that he should "not overcharge his subjects by any more burthens, but satisfy himself with those duties that were received by his father, which he neither could nor would dispense with; but should esteem them unworthy of his protection who should deny them."[2]