As a straw tells the turn of the wind, this trivial incident points to a policy. The insults both within the Abbey and without, had been planned, by the King and Duke, in order to mark the royal indignation at the close fellowship of COTTON with ELIOT and the other Parliamentary leaders. That the insults might be the more keenly felt, the Earl Marshal was left in ignorance of the plan. It is a help to the truthful portraiture of CHARLES, as well as to that of BUCKINGHAM, to note that to insult a group of English ladies was no drawback to the pleasure of putting a marked affront upon a political opponent. Perhaps, it increased the zest, from the probable near relationship of some among them to the offender. But it is more important to note that another and graver intention in respect to Sir Robert COTTON had been already formed. It was in contemplation to do, in 1626, what was not really done until 1629. [Sidenote: Mede to Stuteville; MS. Harl., 383, 18 April, 1626.] BUCKINGHAM had advised the King to put the royal seals on the Cottonian Library. That done, he thought, there would surely be an end to the communication of formidable precedents for parliamentary warfare. More wary counsellors however interposed with wiser advice. A fitting pretext was lacking. Slenderness in the pretext would be no serious obstacle to action. But some excuse there must be. The project, though abandoned for the time, will be seen to have its value when considering, presently, the strange story which is told, in the Privy Council Book, of the ‘_Proposition to bridle the impertinency of Parliaments_,’ and when narrating the sequel of that high-handed act of power, which brought COTTON’S head—as yet scarcely gray—with sorrow to the grave. [Sidenote: ADVICE TO PRIVY COUNCIL ON CHANGE OF COINAGE.] Although, thus early in the reign of CHARLES, a court insult was inflicted upon Sir Robert COTTON, after a fashion the extreme silliness of which rather serves to set off the intended malignity than to cloke it, only a few months passed before his advice was called for in presence of the Council Board, on an important question of home policy. The question raised was that of an alteration of the coinage. The Privy Council was divided in opinion. There was a desire for the advice of statesmen who were not at the Board, but who were known to have studied a subject beset with many difficulties. Among these, Sir Robert COTTON was consulted. He appeared at the Council Table on the 2nd of September, 1626, and we have a report of his speech to the Lords, which from several points of view is notable. [Sidenote: MS. LANSD., ff. 141–152. (B. M.)[13]] [Sidenote: _Council Registers_, James I, vols. v and vi, _passim_. (C. O.)] But a preliminary word or two needs to be said on what may seem the singularity that a man who, in 1625, was fighting zealously beside the Parliamentary patriots, should, in 1626, be speaking at the Council Table as a quasi-councillor of the Crown.