In the Upper House were the bishops, who might naturally be esteemed as guardians and defenders of the Church in the hour of need. But there were none of them possessed of that statesman-like ability, without which it would have been impossible to preserve the Episcopal Establishment in the shock of revolution. Laud, no doubt, had great talents and abundant courage, but the blunders he had made in driving the ship on to the rocks, gave no hope that he would have skill enough to pilot the ship off, even if granted the opportunity. But he had not even the opportunity. Hardly did the Long Parliament open when his indignant enemies thrust him from the helm. The conduct of other bishops had only served to strip them of the last chance of saving their order. The best on the bench shared in the obloquy brought on all by the intolerance and corruption of the worst, while none of them possessed the mental and moral calibre necessary for dealing with those huge difficulties amidst which the Church of England had now been dashed. [Sidenote: 1640, November.] Puritans too, it should be remembered, sat in the Upper as well as in the Lower House. Amongst them may be numbered Devereux, Earl of Essex; Seymour, Earl of Hertford; Rich, Earl of Warwick; Rich, Earl of Holland; Viscount Say and Sele, Viscount Mandeville, Baron Wharton, Greville, Lord Brook, and others. Some of these will appear in the following pages, and of them in general we may observe that they did not lack astuteness, courage, and power. Anglicanism might be stronger in the House of Lords than in the House of Commons; but Puritanism, on the whole, appeared stronger than Anglicanism even there. One man alone could be found capable of doing aught to preserve the Church in this hour of her adversity. Could Lord Strafford have carried out his thorough policy, had he been left free to pursue his course, had no _coup d'etat_ come in the way to arrest his daring ambition, and crush his despotic projects; he might, with his subtle brain, brave heart, and iron hand, have defeated the patriots once more, and so have saved the Anglican Establishment awhile. Another dissolution, or some arbitrary arrests, would, for a season, have crushed Pym and his party. That, however, was not to be. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. Shortly after the opening of Parliament, Pym met Hyde in Westminster Hall, and showed unmistakeably, by his conversation, the course which he intended to pursue. "They must now," he told him, "be of another temper than they were the last Parliament; that they must not only sweep the house clean below, but must pull down all the cobwebs which hung in the top and corners, that they might not breed dust, and so make a foul house hereafter. But they had now an opportunity to make their country happy, by removing all grievances, and pulling up the causes of them by the roots, if all men would do their duties."[90] [Sidenote: 1640, November.]