To remove all suspicion, he, who had ever strenuously maintained his prerogative, and who had even extended it into some points esteemed doubtful, now made an imprudent concession, of which the consequences might have proved fatal to royal authority; he voluntarily offered, that the money voted should be paid to a committee of parliament, and should be issued by them, without being intrusted to his management.[**] The commons willingly accepted of this concession, so unusual in an English monarch: they voted him only three subsidies and three fifteenths:[***] and they took no notice of the complaints which he made of his own wants and necessities.
Advantage was also taken of the present good agreement between the king and parliament, in order to pass the bill against monopolies, which had formerly been encouraged by the king, but which had failed by the rupture between him and the last house of commons.

This bill was conceived in such terms as to render it merely declaratory; and all monopolies were condemned, as contrary to law and to the known liberties of the people.

It was there supposed, that every subject of England had entire power to dispose of his own actions, provided he did no injury to any of his fellow subjects; and that no prerogative of the king, no power of any magistrate, nothing but the authority alone of laws, could restrain that unlimited freedom.

The full prosecution of this noble principle into all its natural consequences, has at last, through many contests, produced that singular and happy government which we enjoy at present.[****] [59] * See note FFF, at the end of the volume.
** Rushworth, vol.i.p.

137.
*** Less than three hundred thousand pounds.
**** See note GGG, at the end of the volume.
The house of commons also corroborated, by a new precedent, the important power of impeachment, which, two years before, they had exercised in the case of Chancellor Bacon, and which had lain dormant for near two centuries, except when they served as instruments of royal vengeance.