These had scarcely in any instance refused bail upon commitments by special command of the king, because the persons committed had seldom or never dared to demand it, at least to insist on their demand.
{1627.} Sir Randolf Crew, chief justice, had been displaced, as unfit for the purposes of the court: Sir Nicholas Hyde, esteemed more obsequious, had obtained that high office: yet the judges, by his direction, went no further than to remand the gentlemen to prison, and refuse the bail which was offered.[*] Heathe, the attorney-general, insisted that the court, in imitation of the judges in the thirty-fourth of Elizabeth,[**] should enter a general judgment, that no bail could be granted upon a commitment by the king or council.[***] But the judges wisely declined complying.

The nation, they saw, was already to the last degree exasperated.

In the present disposition of men's minds, universal complaints prevailed, as if the kingdom were reduced to slavery.

And the most invidious prerogative of the crown, it was said, that of imprisoning the subject, is here openly, and solemnly, and in numerous instances, exercised for the most invidious purpose; in order to extort loans, or rather subsidies, without consent of parliament.
* Rushworth, vol.i.p.

462.
** State Trials, vol.vii.p.