In the autumn Charles was driven again to appeal to parliament, and in November, 1640, the “Long Parliament” met, only to be dissolved thirteen years later by the arms of Cromwell. To the eleven years of “personal government” by Charles succeed thirteen years of parliamentary government, and then the House of Commons, now too enfeebled to endure, itself goes down before a military dictatorship. Pym anticipated the coming struggle by riding over England on the eve of the elections to the Long Parliament and urging the electors to return men to the House of Commons resolute and alive to the crisis. The response was unmistakable. Parliament assembled to find some remedy for the distresses of the country before voting any money for the purposes of the crown. Enormous numbers of petitions were presented, and the House of Commons appointed its committees to attend to and report on the complaints.[111] Before the year closed the House of Commons had struck at the power of Laud and Wentworth (now the Earl of Strafford), and the two ministers lay in prison impeached for high treason. Windebank, Charles’s secretary of state, and Finch, the chancellor, were already fled over seas. It was Pym who went to the bar of the House of Lords to summon Strafford to surrender, and it was Pym who opened the charge of impeachment the following March. As in Eliot’s time, Hampden is content to be overshadowed by his friend, though his was the greater influence in the House. Clarendon has given us his view of Hampden at the opening of the Long Parliament: When this parliament began the eyes of all men were fixed upon him, as their _patriae pater_, and the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it. I am persuaded his power and interest at that time were greater to do good or hurt than any man’s in the kingdom, or than any man of his rank hath had in any time; for his reputation of honesty was universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or private ends could bias them. Baxter, it may be recalled, had written in the _Saints’ Rest_ that one of the pleasures which he hoped to enjoy in heaven was the society of John Hampden. The name of Hampden was blotted out in the copies published after the Restoration. “But,” wrote Baxter, “I must tell the reader that I did blot it out, not as changing my opinion of the person.”