I do again, with the same reservations, renew the same promises to you: and being thus ready on my part to do all that can reasonably be expected from me, I should be glad to know from you, as soon as may be, how far I shall be assisted by you, and what it is you desire from me." The most reasonable objection against the limitations proposed by the king, is, that they introduced too considerable an innovation in the government, and almost totally annihilated the power of the future monarch.

But considering the present disposition of the commons and their leaders, we may fairly presume, that this objection would have small weight with them, and that their disgust against the court would rather incline them to diminish than support regal authority.

They still hoped, from the king's urgent necessities and his usual facility, that he would throw himself wholly into their hands; and that thus, without waiting for the accession of the duke, they might immediately render themselves absolute masters of the government.

The commons, therefore, besides insisting still on the exclusion, proceeded to bring in bills of an important, and some of them of an alarming nature: one to renew the triennial act, which had been so inadvertently repealed in the beginning of the reign; a second to make the office of judge during good behavior; a third to declare the levying of money without consent of parliament to be high treason; a fourth to order an association for the safety of his majesty's person, for defence of the Protestant religion, for the preservation of the Protestant subjects against all invasions and opposition whatsoever, and for preventing the duke of York, or any Papist, from succeeding to the crown.

The memory of the covenant was too recent for men to overlook the consequences of such an association; and the king, who was particularly conversant in Davila, could not fail of recollecting a memorable foreign instance, to fortify this domestic experience.
The commons also passed many votes, which, though they had not the authority of laws, served, however, to discover the temper and disposition of the house.