All these grievances continued to roll up like a snowball, as silently and as rapidly; yet it was an invisible snowball. Outwardly the King and his friends were deceived by the general tranquillity; there was offered very little resistance; there were manifested few open signs of discontent; a general prosperity prevailed; trade was better than it had been for many years; the English flag was flying over new seas and in ports hitherto unknown; agriculture was advancing; the country gentry were growing more easy in their means; every one seemed quiet. In fact it was felt by the better class that there was no hurry. Sooner or later there must be a Parliament; sooner or later the makeshifts of the King would come to an end; there was no hurry. And the bill kept rolling up. But the King, and Laud, and the Court party were deceived. They mistook the quiet of the people, and especially of the City, for submission and subjection; they thought that the spirit of resistance was quelled. Perhaps enough has been said to show the temper of the City. One or two notes more. We find a London clergyman calling on all Christians to “resist the Bishops as robbers of souls, limbs of the Beast, and fathers of Antichrist.” One pays very little heed to ecclesiastical censure, which is generally cursing, at any time, but the vehemence of this language seems worthy of remark. When Prynne was carried from Palace Yard after the sentence which deprived him of his ears, he was escorted by a hundred thousand Londoners with prayers and cries of encouragement and of comfort. In 1638 Hampden’s judges laid down the principle that “no statute prohibiting arbitrary taxation could be pleaded against the King’s will.” To this monstrous doctrine the City said nothing, the people said nothing; they waited; sooner or later there must be a Parliament. Next year began the Scotch troubles, the beginning of the end for Charles. In 1640 the King found himself compelled to call a Parliament; he must have money. This was the Short Parliament. I am quite sure that the news of the summons was received on ’Change and wherever the merchants and citizens of London met together with the quiet laughter of those who saw that the day of redemption was drawing nigh. At last after eleven years the Parliament was called together. Would the members prove staunch? No fear of that. The City knew—no other institution or place knew so well—the feeling of the country. The City always knew the feeling of the country; there were a thousand correspondents between the City and the country; the merchants had no doubt that the country was sound. Laud’s clergy marked the change in the defiant air of the City, in the exulting looks of the people; there were changes close at hand.