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 too powerful, the services too splendid, even the teaching was growing Catholic again. So these Puritans began to cry out, first for a limit to the power of the bishops, then for their abolition, and finally for the abolition of the Prayer Book. But, when it came to that cry, England was by no means united, and at last was divided on the religious question, into two camps of nearly equal strength, who were obliged to fight it out in a bloody civil war.

On the second question, the quarrels about money, which we can call the ‘civil’ as opposed to the religious taxation, there was no real division of opinions. No one of any importance in England wanted the King to be able to take taxes at his pleasure, nor to keep people in prison without bringing them to trial, nor to make war or peace without consulting his Parliament. The Tudors had done many of these things, but, on the whole, with the approval of the whole nation and for its good. The people they kept in prison without trial were usually foreign spies or traitors, who were threatening the very existence of England as a nation. James and Charles, however, sent members of Parliament to prison for speeches made in Parliament against the ‘tyranny’ of the bishops, against taxes, against unpatriotic alliances with Spain. They took, at the English ports, Customs’ duties on goods without consent of Parliament. They did indeed maintain a fine navy, and they certainly built splendid ships, but they did nothing with them. Their sailors were itching to cut Spanish and Popish throats far away in America, and Portuguese throats far away in India; but the fleet was kept hanging about in the Channel, while the flag was insulted by Frenchmen, by Spaniards, and even by our