Page:Life of Oliver Cromwell.pdf/8

 pecuniary embarrassment from the Commons had recourse to various illegal ways of raising money, the most obnoxious, of which was an attempt to procure supplies by a mile which the court party called by the tender name of General Loan," but which was, in fact, an arbitrary tax, imposed without the concurrence of Parliament. The next was the dispensing with the penal laws, enacted against Catholics; one of the most fat d measures of Charles's reign, immediately giving rise to those fanatical sectaries, who, affecting to think the church in danger by the encouragement thus given to Popery, blended religion with sedition, and made the cause of republicanism the cause of God. The popular discontents gained ground with time,-the kingdom became filled with political and religious canals, till at length, a state of anarchy and confusion arose which could be terminated only day, the violent ascendancy either of republican or monarchical authority.

The unhappy monarch, as the troubles of his reign increased, made the most unbounded concessions to Parliament, in the main hope of allaying the distractions in the kingdom, to which their complaints and republican spirit had given rise.- He patiently submitted to the most humiliating indignities,-he reiterated in the most solemn manner, the assurance that he would maintain inviolable the Protestant religion, and maintain the law of the land. The more however, he yielded, the more he was oppressed; the more concessions he made, the greater were the demands, upon him:

Until, at length, the Parliament sent him conditions on which alone, they said, they could submit to a reconciliation, amounting to a total abolition of monarchical authority. With this step could all attempts at an amicable adjustment of those