"The resolute looks of the members as they gathered at Westminster contrasted with the hesitating words of the king, and each brought from borough or county a petition of grievances. Fresh petitions were brought every day by bands of citizens or farmers. Forty committees were appointed to examine and report on them, and their reports formed the grounds on which the Commons acted. One by one the illegal acts of the Tyranny were annulled. Prynne and his fellow 'martyrs' recalled from their prisons, entered London in triumph, amid the shouts of a great multitude who strewed laurel in their path. The civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Privy Council, the Star Chamber, the Court of High Commission, the irregular jurisdictions of the Council of the North, of the Duchy of Lancaster, the County of Chester, and a crowd of lesser tribunals, were summarily abolished. Ship-money was declared illegal, and the judgment in Hampden's case annulled. A statute declaring 'the ancient right of the subjects of this kingdom that no subsidy, custom, impost, or any charge whatsoever, ought or may be laid or imposed upon any merchandize exported or imported by subjects, denizens or allies, without common consent of Parliament,' put an end forever to all pretensions to a right of arbitrary taxation on the part of the crown. A Triennial Bill enforced the Assembly of the Houses every three years, and bound the sheriff and citizens to proceed to election if the Royal writ failed to summon them. Charles protested, but gave way. He was forced to look helplessly on at the wreck of his Tyranny, for the Scotch army was still encamped in the north. ... Meanwhile the Commons were dealing roughly with the agents of the Royal system. ... {854} Windebank, the Secretary of State, with the Chancellor, Finch, fled in terror over sea. Laud himself was flung into prison. ... But even Laud, hateful as he was to all but the poor neighbours whose prayers his alms had won, was not the centre of so great and universal a hatred as the Earl of Strafford. Strafford's guilt was more than the guilt of a servile instrument of tyranny--it was the guilt of 'that grand apostate to the Commonwealth who,' in the terrible words which closed Lord Digby's invective, 'must not expect to be pardoned in this world till he be dispatched to the other.' He was conscious of his danger, but Charles forced him to attend the Court.' He came to London with the solemn assurance of his master that, "while there was a king in England, not a hair of Strafford's head should be touched by the Parliament." Immediately impeached of high treason by the Commons, and sent to the Tower, he received from the king a second and more solemn pledge, by letter, that, "upon the word of a king, you shall not suffer in life, honour or fortune." But the "word of