Great
violence, both against the king and the house of peers, had been
employed in passing this law; and on that account alone the partisans
of the church were provided with a plausible pretence for repealing it.
Charles expressed much satisfaction when he gave his assent to the act
for that purpose. It is certain that the authority of the crown, as well
as that of the church, was interested in restoring the prelates to their
former dignity. But those who deemed every acquisition of the prince
a detriment to the people, were apt to complain of this instance of
complaisance in the parliament.
After an adjournment of some months, the parliament was again assembled,
and proceeded in the same spirit as before. They discovered no design
of restoring, in its full extent, the ancient prerogative of the crown:
they were only anxious to repair all those breaches which had been made,
not by the love of liberty, but by the fury of faction and civil war.
The power of the sword had in all ages been allowed to be vested in the
crown; and though no law conferred this prerogative every parliament,
till the last of the preceding reign, had willingly submitted to an
authority more ancient, and therefore more sacred, than that of any
positive statute.
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