Having frequently called the Commons together in parliament, and finding them more disposed to dictate than to obey, and inflexible in their refusal to furnish him with the pecuniary aid necessary to the accomplishment of his design, he finally determined to rule without a parliament, and by a liberal construction of his prerogatives to arrogate monarchial power. An object so consistent with the dogmas of Catholicism, and so flattering to the vanity of the Episcopal royalists, equally betrayed them into acquiescence. To aid the king in his despotic design the royalists extolled his prerogatives, asserted their divine origin, declared it impious to prescribe any limits to them, and inculcated passive obedience as a Christian virtue and imperative duty. The terror of the Star Chamber, and of the Court of High Commission, was also called into requisition. But neither the eloquent encomiums lavished on the king's prerogative, nor the atrocities of the Star Chamber, nor the severity of the Court of High Commission, nor a rebellion excited in Ireland against parliament, nor the arms of the royal troops, produced anything for the king's prerogatives but disgrace and ridicule. Dreading the liberalism and inflexibility of the Commons, and the uncompromising hostility against his person and measures which his persecution of non-conformists had excited in the majority of them, yet he was obliged, by the critical state of public affairs, to call them together. This parliament proved the memorable "long parliament." As might have been expected, its embittered and exasperated members opened the session with torrents of scorn and contempt poured on the king and his prerogatives. They also adopted every expedient to inflame the public mind, and to make it accessory to their design of reducing the king to unresisting helplessness. They denounced the Episcopalians, and other advocates of the king's prerogatives, in whom Catholicism and monarchy had disguised themselves under the semblance of Protestantism. They attempted to exclude the bishops from the House of Lords. They so intimidated the royalists of the House that many of them absented themselves from their seats. They restricted the king's prerogatives, abolished the Star Chamber, and the Court of High Commission, passed acts against superstitious practices, executed Laud and Stafford, and as the king had set the dangerous precedent of liberal construction of law and prerogatives, they availed themselves of the same means to justify their measures. The impetuous tornado of their zeal and wrath swept away all the king's elaborate schemes for the acquisition of monarchial power, and poured upon his unprotected head a pitiless storm of wrath. Condemned to be the helpless spectator of the destruction of his hopes of absolute power, which art, tyranny, and usurpation had enabled him to build, he became wild with despair and rage, and, in a desperate