discouraged the reform party, and, from this time, the Puritans began
to lose hope that any moral or religious betterment would be permitted
among the people.

In the constitutional imbroglio, James resented the attempt of
Parliament to curb his extravagance by its method of granting him
money on condition that he would make ecclesiastical reforms and grant
the redress of other grievances. When the king grew angry and
attempted to rule without a Parliament, the Puritan party broadened
its purpose and became the champion also of civil liberty. Among his
offenses, James refused to restore to their pulpits three hundred
Puritan ministers whom, in 1605, he silenced for not accepting the
Three Articles, notwithstanding the fact that Parliament itself had
refused to make them binding upon the clergy. The king also refused to
define the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, and to respect
the limitation of the powers of the High Court of Commission when they
were determined by the judges. And further, James positively refused
to admit that with Parliament alone rested the power to levy imposts
and duties. After wrangling with his first Parliament for seven years
over these and similar questions, the king ruled for the next three
without that representative body. Finding it necessary, in 1614, to
convene his lords, squires, and burgesses, the king was disappointed
to find that the new Parliament was no more pliable to his will than
its predecessor had been, and he shortly dissolved it. The great
leaders of the opposition, such as Coke, Eliot, Pym, Selden and
Hampden, were not all Puritans, but these men, and others of their
kind, joined with the reform party in demanding that the rights of the
people should be respected and the evils of government
redressed. James's whole reign was marked by quarrels with a stubborn
Parliament and by periods of absolute rule that were characterized by