After the recess the difficulties and dangers of the situation increased daily.  Revolt, popularly regarded as fomented by the Court Party, had broken out in Ireland; the King, evidently seeking power and opportunity to retract the concessions he had made, was seeking aid in all directions—­Rome, France, Spain, and was intriguing in Scotland; the air was full of rumours of a plot of the Court to bring down the army in the North to overawe the Parliament; and the moderate men,—­“that is to say, men who never go to the bottom of any difficulty,” as Gardiner expresses it,—­by whose aid the above changes had been effected, were inclined to pause, if not to retrace their steps.  Under these circumstances the popular leaders in the House of Commons, in November 1641, framed and passed the Great Remonstrance, which was practically an address to the nation, to justify their past action and to appeal for further support.  In this famous document all the oppressive and arbitrary acts of the past fifteen years were narrated in impressive language; a detailed account was given of the necessary work already accomplished, of the dangers and difficulties yet to be surmounted, declaring the purpose of the House to be, not to abolish Episcopacy, but to reduce the power of the bishops; and, finally, indicating the line of future constitutional reform by urging that the King should employ no Ministers save those in whom the Parliament could place confidence.

Contrary to expectation, the debate on the Remonstrance was long and stormy, and the division—­it was only carried in a full House by a majority of nine—­showed plainly that a reaction in favour of the King had already begun.  Charles had now a final opportunity of regaining the confidence of the representatives of the nation, and for a few days it seemed as if he were inclined to follow a moderate, dignified and constitutional course.  But for a few days only.  On the 3rd of January 1642, without giving a hint of his intentions to the constitutional Royalists he had so recently called to his councils, and whom he had faithfully promised to consult on all matters relating to the House of Commons, he sent down his Attorney-General to impeach the leading members of the House, Pym, Holles, and Haselrig, at the bar of the House of Lords, on a charge of high treason.  As Macaulay well says,[28:1] “It would be difficult to find in the whole history of England such an instance of tyranny, perfidy, and folly.”  But worse was to follow.  The Commons refused to surrender their members, and Charles resolved on their forcible arrest on the floor of the House.  The threatened members, however, had been warned, and had taken refuge in the City of London; their absence, together with the dignified attitude of the remaining members, prevented the outrage ending in bloodshed:  in a bloodshed the possibility of which it is even to-day impossible to contemplate with equanimity.