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 bably tinged by Clarendon's later feeling, but it is extremely probable that from the conversation of his fellow-soldiers in the camp in the north, as well as from that of his fellow-members of Westminster, Falkland realised what the Laudian system really was, and that he generously threw himself into the struggle against it for the sake of the consciences of others, though it is unlikely that it ever pressed very heavily on his own. Such, at least, is a fair explanation of the part taken by him when, at the opening of the Long parliament, he again found himself member for Newport. The self-willed government of Strafford was as little to his taste as the self-willed government of Laud, and he, with all the warmth of his nature, flung himself heartily into the opposition. If, as has been suggested, Falkland was predisposed to take part against Strafford on account of the earl's conduct to the first Lord Falkland, it is all the more creditable to him that on 11 Nov., when the question of the impeachment of Strafford was under consideration, he asked that the accusation should be held back to give time for a full inquiry into its truth (ib. iii. 8). At a later stage of the proceedings, on 18 Feb. 1641, when the commons was much excited by the concession made by the lords to Strafford of further time for the preparation of his defence, Falkland calmed them by reminding them that the lords had ‘done no more than they conceived to be necessary in justice,’ and that it would only serve Strafford if they quarrelled with the upper house (D'Ewes's ‘Diary,’ Harl. MS. clxii. fol. 237). When, on 21 April, the final issue was raised on the third reading of the bill of attainder, Falkland not only voted but spoke in favour of the measure (ciphered entry in D'Ewes's ‘Diary,’ Harl. MS. 164, fol. 183 a).

On another great political question, that of ship-money, Falkland took an equally decided part. His speech about ship-money (, iv. 86) was in reality an attack on the judges who had perverted the law, and more especially upon Lord-keeper Finch. In the division on the religious question, which ultimately split up the Long parliament into two hostile sections, Falkland took from the beginning the side which gradually developed into an episcopalian-royalist party. In the great debate of 8 Feb. 1641 (ib. iv. 184, where the date of 9 Feb. is wrongly given) he made a vehement attack upon the bishops on account of their claim to divine right and that of oppression of the people both in religion and liberty. He urged that the clergy should be subjected to the control of the civil magistrate, and that the power of imposing ceremonies ‘which any member counts unlawful, and no man counts necessary,’ should be taken from them. But he was not in favour of the abolition of episcopacy, thinking that triennial parliaments would be sufficiently powerful to keep the bishops in check. It was not desirable to remove bishops merely for the sake of change. Later on, if Clarendon's authority is to be accepted, Hampden assured Falkland that if a bill for depriving bishops of their seats in the House of Lords and of other civil offices became law, ‘there would be nothing more attempted to the prejudice of the church.’ The proposed measure was wrecked in the House of Lords, and Falkland found himself compelled to give a vote on the so-called root-and-branch bill for the total extinction of episcopacy. In a speech delivered either on 27 May on the second reading, or on some subsequent day when the bill was in committee, Falkland, in addition to the argument that the change was undesirable and not sought for by the majority, spoke of the abolition as injurious to learning. Evidently, however, his strongest feeling was that of dread of the establishment of presbyterianism, which he believed to be the inevitable consequence of the bill before the house. That system claimed as strongly as the bishops had done to exist by divine right. Presbyterianism would, if once admitted, lay claim to an unlimited and independent authority. ‘If it be said,’ Falkland continued, ‘that this unlimitedness and independence is only in spiritual things, I answer, first, that arbitrary government being the worst of governments, and our bodies being worse than our souls, it will be strange to set up that over the second of which we were so impatient over the first. Secondly, that Mr. Solicitor, speaking about the power of the clergy to make canons to bind, did excellently inform us what a mighty influence spiritual power hath upon temporal affairs. So that if our clergy had the one, they had inclusively almost all the other; and to this I may add the vast temporal power of the pope, allowed him by men who allow it him only in ordine ad spiritualia, for the fable will tell you, if you make the lion judge (and the clergy assisted by the people is lion enough), it was a wise fear of the fox's lest he might call a knub [i.e. a knob] a horn. And more, sir, they will in this case be judges not only of that which is spiritual, but of what it is that is so; and the people receiving instruction from no other, will take the most temporal matter to be spiritual, if they tell them it is so’ (a speech printed in Triplet's second edition of Discourse of Infallibility).