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 should be kept in prison indefinitely. At first Charles was inclined to assent to a more lenient treatment in the case of Selden and Valentine, but on more mature deliberation he directed that all the prisoners should be treated alike. In October efforts were made to induce the prisoners to accept liberty on the terms of entering into security for their good behaviour, and the king wrote to Hyde, the lord chief justice, urging him to force them to submission. This demand for security was resented by Selden as a gross indignity to men of position and honour and members of the late parliament. Irate at the strong position taken by the prisoners, the court seems to have increased in the following month the harshness of their imprisonment. They were deprived of the liberty of moving about within the precincts of their prison and of seeing their friends. Selden's place of imprisonment was frequently changed, and he passed in turn from the Tower to the Marshalsea (at Southwark) and the Gate House at Westminster (cf., ii. 73–4).

At last, in May 1631, Selden was liberated at the instance of the earls of Arundel and Pembroke, who were anxious to have his assistance in some litigation in which he had special knowledge. He was set free on giving security to appear before the court on the first day of the next term, and this procedure was repeated till February 1635, when, as the result of a somewhat abject petition to the king presented in October 1634, he was unconditionally discharged.

During these harassing and intricate proceedings, viz. in 1630, another prosecution was begun against Selden in the Star-chamber for circulating copies of a squib written in the preceding reign by Sir Robert Dudley [q. v.], and called 'A Proposition for his Majesty's service to bridle the impertinency of Parliament.' The prosecution was allowed to drop on the birth of a prince of Wales.

The court's hostility seems to have excited little or no resentment in the mind of Selden. In 1631 it was rumoured that he had gone over to the royalist side; in 1633 Selden actively helped to organise the masque which the four inns of court prepared at once to give expression to their loyalty, and to show their dissent from Prynne's 'Histrio-mastix' (, pp. 19–22).

In the Short parliament of 1640 Selden does not appear to have sat; but to the Long parliament he was returned by his university of Oxford. His colleague, Sir Thomas Roe [q. v.], died in 1644, and, as the vacancy was not filled up, Selden alone represented the university during the rest of the Long parliament. He was appointed one of the committee to examine the papers of Lord Strafford, but opposed the proceedings of the house against him. On 10 Nov. 1640 he was placed on the committee on the state of the kingdom; on 23 Nov. he led the attack on the court of the marshal; on 27 Nov. he opposed the crown on the great question of ship-money; on 31 Jan. and 9 March 1641 he spoke on the question of episcopacy, opposing its abolition. On 3 May he signed the declaration of adherence to the church of England; and on 5 June he was placed on the committee to draw articles of impeachment against Archbishop Laud. On 6 July the house resolved that the sealing of the papers of Selden and other members was a violation of the privileges of parliament. On 17 Jan. 1642 he was one of a committee of twenty-two appointed to examine Charles I's violation of the privileges of parliament, and to petition the king for the payment of damages to Pym, Hampden, and others unjustly accused of treason. In the following month (4 Feb. 1642) an order was made that Selden and certain other members should attend on Wednesday next, and continue their service in the house, an indication perhaps that Selden was somewhat withdrawing from his parliamentary labours, and of a suspicion that he was inclining towards the king's side.

In 1642 the king entertained the notion of entrusting the great seal either to Lord-chief-justice Banks or to Selden. But Lord Falkland and Hyde, who were consulted on the point, felt so positive that the offer would be refused by Selden that the matter went no further (, Hist. v. 209). Another attempt, made by the king through the Marquis of Hertford, to induce him to leave London and join the court at York was met by Selden's alleging, and probably with truth, that he could be of more service to the king in London than in York. 'He was in years,' says Clarendon, 'and of a tender constitution; he had for many years enjoyed his ease which he loved; was rich, and would not have made a journey to York or have lain out of his own bed for any preferment.' When, in this same year (1642), there arose between the king and commons the great question as to the control of the military force of the kingdom, Selden took up a position which appears to have expressed his real and unbiased opinion: he regarded the commission of array issued by the king as entirely illegal, and spoke strongly against it in the house; but he also regarded the ordinance of the militia as 'without any shadow of law or pretence of precedent,' and stood against it accordingly.