strongly; and then D'Ewes himself rose and made a lengthy speech in its favour, duly self-reported, but with which the reader need not be troubled. Divers followed him, speaking on either side, some for, and others against the bill, and many using violent expressions against it. Mr. Thomas Cook, for example, the member for Leicester, declared that one Hexey in Richard the Second's time, for introducing, in the twentieth year of that reign, a bill against the King's prerogative of far less consequence than this, had been condemned as a traitor. Nor did Mr. Mallory, the member for Ripon, speak less violently on the same side. He denounced the bill as fit to be burned in Westminster Palace Yard, and the gentleman who brought it in as deserving to be questioned. On the other hand, several rose and excepted against Mr. Mallory's speech, as rather thinking it more worthy to be questioned: but hereupon Strode got up and remarked that he thought Mr. Mallory's speech in some sort excusable, as having been occasioned by the speech of a gentleman that sat near him (alluding to Mr. Cook) who had once before cited in that house a highly dangerous precedent. Great cries of assent followed this remark, and many rose in succession to enforce it, until, in spite of dissentients, Mr. Cook was called up to explain. But what he said not satisfying the House, he was ordered to withdraw, while some would have had his further attendance suspended. Meanwhile a sudden thought had occurred to D'Ewes, which he had immediately proceeded to execute. "During this debate," he says, I retired out of the house to my lodging in Goatsalley, near the Palace, and there searched out the precedent. On my return I said that the gentleman now withdrawn was a young man, and a man of hope, "and therefore I desired that he be not too much dis"heartened. I thought him more punishable for misreciting, than for citing, precedents. The precedent in question was not against the King's prerogative, but against the excessive expenses of the King's household ; 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 " and though Hexey was sentenced, he was afterwards cleared by Parliament. Therefore the greatest censure "I would have laid upon this gentleman is, that he would "cite no more records till he shall have studied them "better. At which divers of the house laughed:" and Cook having been called in, and admonished by Mr. Speaker,' Haselrig's bill passed to a division. Sir John Culpeper and Sir Frederick Cornwallis were tellers for the Yeas, which were 125, to reject it; and Denzil Holles and Sir William Armyn, member for Grantham, for the majority of 158 in its favour. And so the bill was read a first time. Next day, Wednesday the 8th, Geoffrey Palmer made his submission and was released from the Tower. The day following, the expulsion of the officers convicted of complicity in the second army-plot took place; and on the morning after, Friday the 10th of December, the members were startled, on coming to take their seats, to find a new guard of Halberdiers set upon the doors. A debate upon the report as to the Public Debt, handed in 66 1 The only notices hitherto given of this incident appear in the Journals and in Verney's Notes. 'Some excep"tions were taken to Mr. Coke for "the misalleging of precedents; and "after he had explained himself, he was, according to the order of the "House, commanded to withdraw. "Resolved upon the question, That "Mr. Coke shall be called down, and "in his place, have an admonition "for the words that fell from him. "The Speaker told him in his place "that he was commanded to admonish "him, that he should take a care "hereafter, how he did allege or ap"ply Precedents in this house." Journals, ii. 334. Verney says in his Notes: "Sir Arthur Haselrig did "bring in a bill to dispose all the "Militia of England into two generals "for life. This bill was thought fit "by some to be rejected, and Mr. "Thomas Cook said, it was in his 66 was questioned and taxed, for cit"ing but half the precedent, for "Hexam was afterwards cleared by "parliament. For this offence he re"ceived an admonition in his place, "by the Speaker."-Notes, p. 132. 2 On the same morning I find a point of order and reverence settled by Mr. Denzil Holles. "On Mr. "Holles' motion," says D'Ewes's Manuscript, "it was declared the "ancient order of the house that when "men came in and went out of the "house, they ought to make three reverences; and that if any were "speaking on the lower form, they "ought to go about, and not to come 'up towards the table"-interrupting honorable speakers! 66 by Sir John Hothain the previous day, and upon the immediate necessity of raising men and money for the requirements of the Irish Rebellion, was in progress, when Sir Philip Stapylton stood up and called attention to the fact that there was a new guard set upon the house of two hundred men with halberts. Much agitation ensued upon this, the business immediately in hand was dropped, and some fear and trouble found expression. Upon particular inquiry it was discovered, that the plea for this new show or threatening of force was a report which had gone abroad of a great petition coming from the City against the bishops' votes, and against the obstruction by the Lords of other matters of which the settlement was much to be desired, which petition, accompanied by large numbers of citizens, was to be presented the following day. "Then we were informed," says D'Ewes, "from several hands, that the original ground of those "men assembling was upon a writ from the Lord Keeper "pretended to be warranted by the statute of Northampton "(13 Henry IV.) for the better suppressing of Routs and "Riots" in obedience to which writ the under-sheriff and magistrates of Middlesex had issued order for the placing of the Halberdiers. The matter was debated with unusual gravity and earnestness, and, upon the motion of Pym, not only was a resolution passed that the placing of such a guard without consent of the House was a breach of privilege, but orders were issued for bringing before them at nine o'clock on the following morning the various magistrates by whom the warrants had been signed. Instant steps were at the same time taken for removal of the Halberdiers,' and while these were in pro 666 66 gress, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, Sir Christopher Yelverton entered, and said that divers of the Lords were now come, knowing nothing at all of the setting of this new guard, and were startled at it "as much as ourselves." A characteristic incident of the debate, as related in D'Ewes's manuscript, should not be omitted. One of Hyde's party, Mr. Francis Newport, the member for Shrewsbury, "during our debate offered to go out of "the house, and there was great cry, Shut the door! Shut the door!' and yet he would go away. The Serjeant not being in the house, Mr. Rushworth, the "clerk's assistant, was sent after him; who called him "back. He being come into the house, the Speaker "declared to him that when the sense of the House was "that the door should be shut, no member ought to go "out. Mr. Newport said he knew of no order that had "been made to that end: but Mr. Pym showed, that, "besides the general sense of the House, expressed by so many calling out to have the door shut, the greatness "and weight of the agitation might persuade any man to "forbear going out." 66 The next morning, Saturday the 11th of December, the under-sheriff and Westminster justices appeared, and, having been duly examined and reprimanded, and the under-sheriff having been committed to the Tower, there shortly afterwards arrived at the house the Petition upon whose presentation the King had been so eager to impose that check of armed men. The intention of its originators had been to disabuse his Majesty of the fatal notion which seems to have been suddenly engendered in him by his recent grand entertainment in the city, and by the eager royalist tendencies of the Lord Mayor, that there was any real defection from the popular cause in that its most powerful stronghold;' and so eagerly had it been signed. "sent of this House, is a breach of "the privilege of the House: And "that therefore such guards ought to "be discharged. Resolved upon the “question, That this Guard shall be "immediately discharged by the com"mand of this House." 1 Lord Macaulay has admirably by all classes with this view, that, up to that date in the world's history, no petition of equal size and dimensions had yet been seen. One of the members for London, Alderman Pennington, who afterwards sat as one of the King's judges, announced its arrival. He said that divers. able and grave citizens were waiting without, to present the House with that formidable petition of which they had been told that ten thousand persons were coming to present it; but a small number only had come with it, and in a humble and peaceable manner. To avoid all possibility of commotion or undue excitement in connection with it, it had been brought by twelve leading citizens. Upon this the House laid aside all other business; the Speaker called in the deputation; and Mr. Fouke, a merchant dwelling in Mark-lane, appeared at their head, and presented it as the humble petition of Aldermen, Common Councilmen, Subsidymen, and other inhabitants of the City of London and suburbs thereof. Then, says the precise Sir Simonds D'Ewes, "the Clerk of the house "did thereupon go down to the bar, and received it of him, described (Essays, ii. 213) what the city then was. "The city of London was indeed the fastness of public "liberty, and was, in those times, a "place of at least as much import66 ance as Paris during the French "Revolution......It was then closely "inhabited by three hundred thou"sand persons, to whom it was not "merely a place of business, but a "place of constant residence. This "great capital had as complete a civil "and military organization as if it had "been an independent republic. Each "citizen had his company; and the "companies which now seem to exist only for the sake of epicures and "of antiquaries, were then formid"able brotherhoods, the members of "which were almost as closely bound "porations abundantly prove. The 'principal offices were filled by the "most opulent and respectable mer"chants of the kingdom. The pomp "of the magistracy of the capital was "inferior only to that which sur"rounded the person of the sovereign. "The Londoners loved their city with "that patriotic love which is found "only in small communities, like "those of ancient Greece, or like "those which arose in Italy during "the middle ages. The numbers, "the intelligence, the wealth of the "citizens, the democratical form of "their local government, and their 'vicinity to the Court and the Parlia"ment, made them one of the most "formidable bodies in the kingdom. "Even as soldiers they were not to "be despised......At the battle of Newbury they repelled the fiery "onset of Rupert, and saved the 66 army of the Parliament from de"struction." 66 |