Schemes and Petitions against sitting at Oxford. 27

other Revolutionists to seize the King's person at Oxford. Charles received intelligence of the treason, and with his newly awakened promptitude defeated it, by placing himself under the protection of his troop of Guards, horse and foot, who were no longer under any controul of Monmouth. They had been denounced by Lord Essex as having among them many Papists; but, when the King demanded the names of any such, not one could be given. Yet the false declaration, whereof Essex made himself the spokesman, was published to the world without correction or retractation, to damage the Court party in general and the Duke of York in particular.1

2

London chose the same members to serve in the Oxford parliament who had served in the one preceding; so generally was this done elsewhere that few above a hundred new members were elected. Thus the opinions and votes of the old majority were a foregone conclusion. Success was illusive, the Shaftesburian electioneering tactics overdoing the work: and thus they absolutely made an ultimate triumph impossible. He had burnt his own ships, and destroyed the bridges behind his enemy. This most cautious of tricksters ended by becoming one of the most reckless.

Monmouth also had made reconciliation increasingly difficult, by his violence in the previous parliament; when the Lords refused the Exclusion-Bill, which he advocated with singular absence of

This was on January 25th, when presenting a petition for the Parliament to sit as usual at Westminster, and not at Oxford. The petition was signed by Essex, Shaftesbury, Monmouth, the Earls of Kent, Huntingdon, Bedford, Salisbury, Clare, and Stamford; Lords Mordaunt, Eure, Paget, Grey, Herbert, Howard of Escrick, and Delamere. Luttrell summarizes the petition: it assumed to represent "the just apprehensions the nation had on the late surprizing dissolution of the parliament, and the inconveniences that would attend the holding of a parliament at Oxford; and therefore they did humbly desire his Majestie would be pleased to lett the intended parliament sitt at Westminster. His Majestie told them (as is said) he look't on it only as the opinion of so many men."-Brief Relation, i. 65. The excuse had been that at Oxford "neither Lords nor Commons can be in safety, but will be daily exposed to the swords of the Papists and their adherents, of whom too many are crept into his Majesty's Guards." Probably the exact words of the King's answer are, as elsewhere reported, with instant rejoinder, "That, my Lord, may be your opinion; it is not mine." It is noteworthy that the pretext offered, by Shaftesbury's party, for the plan of seizing the King at Oxford and bringing him prisoner to London was the "getting him out of the hands of the Roman Catholics."

2 They were Sir Robert Clayton and Thomas Pilkington, aldermen, with Sir Thomas Player, Knight, and William Love, Esquire. Westminster returned Sir William Poulteney and the busybody Sir William Waller. The pretentious "Tom of Ten Thousand" Thynne with Sir Walter St. John again came in for Wiltshire. The members in all were 513, of whom only 110 were new members, who had not served in the previous parliament, among them being Sir John Reresby for Aldborough, firm for the Court. In general, the new members were believed to be more violently factious than even the old had been. There were thirty-two petitions touching disputed elections, and a few men had been returned for two places, such as Wm. Leveson Gower and Sir John Fagg.

28

King Charles and his Queen go to Oxford.

taste, feeling, or prudence. He had declared that nothing but the Exclusion could preserve the King from the malice of the Duke of York: a speech heard by Charles with intense disgust, and a true comment that Monmouth's was "the Kiss of Judas."

Ford Lord Grey, the evil genius of Monmouth's life, had been his entertainer at Chichester shortly before the Oxford Parliament sat, the Duke returning from Grey's house to London on the 26th of February, immediately before the Fitz-Harris discovery.

Early in the morning of the 12th of March King Charles went to Windsor, and thence two days afterwards to Oxford; the Queen going thither also, the same day, from Whitehall. They were received at the borders of Oxfordshire by Lord-Lieutenant Norris, with the county troops, and conducted to the loyal University-city, which had of old proved its devotion to Charles the First. They arrived at night. The Vice-Chancellor and heads of houses, with townsmen, received their Majesties "in their formalities with all demonstrations of joy and welcome." The King's guards, horse and foot, had preceded him, on the first days of the month. He lodged at Christ Church, and the Queen at Merton College. On the 17th he went to Burford, "where on the Downs he saw several horseraces run, and returned to Oxford again" next day.

During the week preceding the opening of Parliament the roads were thronged with lords and gentlemen, the Shaftesburians with armed retainers, chiefly on horse, with blue ribbons in their hats marked "No Popery! No Slavery!" Swaggering among them was the pestilent Stephen College, obtrusively armed with sword and pistol, rejoicing in his nick-name of "the Protestant Joiner." (See previous Vol. IV. pp. 262, 263, 595; and p. 35 of the present volume.) "The Duke of Monmouth and Lord Grey went to the Oxford Parliament with a noble and numerous train." Many desperate men emerged from their seclusion, and accompanied them, hoping for an opportunity to overthrow the government. There had been debate as to the holding of term, or keeping back the students from attendance at a time of such commotion, unfavourable to quiet study and the decision to intermit their attendance was wisely made. The Lords sat in the Divinity School, and the Commons used the Convocation-house, but felt crowded. Other schools were taken for their committees.

The King in opening the new Parliament at Oxford passed a sharp rebuke on the late preceding Parliament of Westminster. Expressing a hope that there would be no renewal of the unwarrantable proceedings of the last House of Commons, which had forced him to dissolve them, he thought that it might be wondered how he had been patient so long. He marked out their duties and their limitation; recommending (as a sop for Cerberus) the farther prosecution of the Plot, the trial of the accused prisoners in the

An' Expedient' of Halifax, instead of Exclusion. 29

Tower, and the providing for the speedier conviction of recusants. While declaring his readiness to listen to any 'expedient' for the preservation of the Protestant religion and the monarchy, so that the administration of the Government might be kept in Protestant hands if a Popish successor came to the throne, he emphatically warned them off from a renewal of the Exclusion. "What I have formerly and so often declared touching the succession, I cannot depart from." William Williams was again chosen Speaker, and approved. Halifax had suggested an "expedient," glanced at prospectively, which was recommended by Sir Thomas Littleton and Sir Thomas Meres, but rejected as impracticable. It advocated the present banishment of the Duke of York; his bearing the title of King after his brother's death, while governing powers were to be vested in a Protestant regent (Mary of Orange first, then Anne); James's heir to succeed and overturn the regency on his coming of age, if edu cated as a Protestant. But nothing save unmitigated Exclusion would satisfy the Commons. Also, they wished to remove the Fitz-Harris trial from the common-law to an Impeachment, which the Lords rejected, so there was a quarrel between the Houses. Charles was perfectly prepared for the emergency. Coming in a sedan chair, with his robes and crown ready to be put on, he sent for the recalcitrant Commons, to hear this brief dismissal :

"My Lords and Gentlemen :-That all the World may see to what a point we are come, that we are not like to have a good end when the divisions at the beginning are such: therefore, my Lord Chancellor, do as I have commanded you.” The Lord Chancellor immediately spoke :- My Lords and Gentlemen :-His Majesty has commanded me to say, That it is his Majesty's royal pleasure and will, that this Parliament be dissolved: and this Parliament is dissolved."

Tableau of consternation. Conspirators non-plus'd. Curtain.

Resistance was impossible, and by their conduct the Revolutionists had given the King an advantage which he followed up by publishing a printed Declaration of his reasons for dissolving this Oxford Parliament, and the one before it. The hopelessness of the struggle terrified the detected and baffled intriguers. They had gone armed, but they found loyal Cavaliers ready to cross swords with the swashbucklers, impecunious tenants, Protestant Joiners, and adherents of the Good Old Cause of Republican anarchy, who dared again to quit obscurity for the light of day. One brief week they had flaunted their ribbons of "No Popery! No Slavery!" and vapoured at Oxford, to the dread and astonishment of Deans, Presidents, and Bursars; to the delight of the mutinous rabble that haunts the purlieus of a University; and to the encouragement of hopes among the lodging-house keepers or needy tradesmen. These expected to reap a great profit, but found none: for Shaftesbury's followers were not people who loved to pay a score. Such disappointment forms the subject of the following Roxburghe Ballad.

[Roxburghe Collection, II. 384; Wood's, E. 25, fol. 96.]

Orford in Mourning, for the Loss

of the Parliament ;

Or,

London's loud Laughter at her late flattering her self with Excessive Trading.

A PLEASANT NEW SONG.

Now Tapsters, Vintners, Sales-men, Taylors, all
Open their Throats, and for their losses bawl;
The Parliament is gone, their hopes now fail,
Pall'd is the Wine, and Egar grows the Ale:
Now Rooms, late let for twenty Crowns a week,
Would let for twelve-pence, but may Lodgers seek.
London Rejoyces, who was sad before,

And in like Coin does pay off Oxford's score.

[=aigre, sharp.

TO THE TUNE OF, Packington's Pound; OR, Digby's Farewel. See vol. iv. pp. 193 and 136; 392, 393, and 397 to 400, for an account of these two tunes. Packington's Pound is given in Mr. William Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 124. We gave one Captain Digby's Furewell on pp. 393, 398 of our previous volume; another is "Farewell, my Arminda."

Oxford in Mourning for the Loss of the Parliament. 31

London now smiles to see Oxford in Tears,

Who lately derided and scoff'd at her fears;
Thinking their joys they would never be spent,
But that always they'd last with the Parliament:
But O! she's mistaken, for now they are gone,
And fairly have left her to grieve all alone.

Now Vintners and Tapsters, that hop'd for such gain
By cheating the people, have cause to complain;
The Cooks, that were stor'd with Provision, now grieve,
Whilst London to hear it does laugh in her sleeve:
And now each fat Hostis, who lives by the Sins
Of those who brought many, to whimper begins.

So dolefully Tool now the Bells, that of late
With loud sounds did a pleasure to hear them create;
The Inn-keepers, late that so Prodigal were

Of Standings, have Horse-room enough and to spare:
Whilst London rejoyces to think of the time

6

12

24

When Orford Bells jangl'd, and scarcely cou'd Chime. 18
Now Salesmen and Sempstresses homeward do pack;
No more cryes the Shooe-maker, "What do you lack ?"
The Taylor by Thimble and Bodkin does curse,
And swears that his Trading could never be worse:
Yet home again bare-foot poor Prick-louse must trudge,
Whilst Oxford he bans, and his Labour does grudge.
The Chair-men, who thought to return with a load
Of Silver to London, to store their aboad,
Now homeward do foot it, though 'tis with much pain,
And
creep in their Chairs to secure them from Rain:
When night does approach, there their lodging they make,
For, a better to purchase, no monies they take.
The Coffee-men wish they at London had stay'd,
And not to have rambl'd in hopes of a Trade;
Their Shops of Sedition did fail of their end,
And back now their Puddle to London they send: 1
While she does deride them, and flout them to scorn,
To see their Ears hanging as if they were forlorn.

30

36

1 See the Satyr upon Coffee, on pp. 172 to 184, where we show the frequency and virulence of the lampoons and seditious libels that used to circulate in the public coffee-houses of London. Cavaliers avoided them, at this date.