1023.
{1640.} The king, with great difficulty, found means to draw together an army; but soon discovered that all savings being gone, and great debts contracted, his revenue would be insufficient to support them.

An English parliament, therefore, formerly so unkind and intractable, must now, after above eleven years' intermission, after the king had tried many irregular methods of taxation, after multiplied disgusts given to the Puritanical party, be summoned to assemble, amidst the must pressing necessities of the crown.
As the king resolved to try whether this house of commons would be more compliant than their predecessors, and grant him supply on any reasonable terms, the time appointed for the meeting of parliament was late, and very near the time allotted for opening the campaign against the Scots.

After the past experience of their ill humor, and of their encroaching disposition, he thought that he could not in prudence trust them with a long session, till he had seen some better proofs of their good intentions: the urgency of the occasion, and the little time allowed for debate, were reasons which he reserved against the malecontents in the house; and an incident had happened, which, he believed, had now furnished him with still more cogent arguments.
The earl of Traquaire had intercepted a letter written to the king of France by the Scottish malecontents, and had conveyed this letter to the king.

Charles, partly repenting of the large concessions made to the Scots, partly disgusted at their fresh insolence and pretensions, seized this opportunity of breaking with them.

He had thrown into the Tower Lord Loudon, commissioner from the Covenanters, one of the persons who had signed the treasonable letter.[*] And he now laid the matter before the parliament, whom he hoped to inflame by the resentment, and alarm by the danger, of this application to a foreign power.
* Clarendon, vol.i.