But it would be endless to reckon up all the instances of his illegal proceedings. He was a confederate with all the enemies of the liberties of these kingdoms, and pushed on the unhappy king to such fatal measures, as at last produced the civil wars and the subversion of the constitution. He was chief counsellor and minister after Buckingham’s death; so that as Sir Edward Deering said of him, to the parliament, “Our manifold griefs do fill a mighty and vast circumference, yet so that from every part our lines of sorrow do lead unto him, and point at him the centre, from whence our miseries in this church, and many of them in the commonwealth, do flow.” Sir Harbottle Grimstone was more severe, who called him, “The sty of all pestilential filth—The great and common enemy of all goodness, and good men—A viper near his majesty’s person, to distill poison into his sacred ears.” These and the like violences of Laud and his creatures, drew down the just vengeance of the parliament on his head, and involved the church of England itself in his ruin. Bishops and common prayer were now no more. The church was formed after a quite different model, and the presbyterian discipline received and established, both the lords and commons taking the solemn league and covenant, which was intended for the utter abolishing prelatical government. The writers of the church party think this an everlasting brand of infamy upon the presbyterians. But how doth this throw greater infamy upon them, than the subversion of presbytery in Scotland, and the imposing canons and common prayer on that nation, doth on Laud and his creatures? If the alteration of the established religion, in any nation, be a crime in itself, it is so in every nation; and I doubt not but the Scotch presbyterians, think that that archbishop, and the prelatical party, acted as unjustly, illegally, and tyrannically, in introducing the English form of church government and worship into Scotland, contrary to their former settlement, and the inclination of almost the whole nation, as the high-church party can do with respect to the presbyterians, for altering the form of the establishment in England; And, indeed, the same arguments that will vindicate the alterations made in Scotland by the king and the bishops, will vindicate those made in England by the parliament and the presbyterians.