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

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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."

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

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 66 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 66 'place of constant residence. This

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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 "together as the members of a High"land clan. How strong these arti"ficial ties were, the numerous and "valuable legacies anciently be'queathed by citizens to their cor

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"and brought it up, and laid it on the table. The said petition was not very long, but there were some fifteen "thousand names set to it. It was about three-quarters "of a yard in breadth, and twenty-four yards in length." Nor did it seem that even these unusual proportions had quite satisfied its promoters; for the worthy citizen at the head of the Deputation, having liberty to address the House, informed them that they should have got before that day many thousand hands more to it, but that they found many obstructions and much opposition from the Lord Mayor, and others. And such, said Mr. Fouke, in conclusion, was the feeling excited by these difficulties interposed, that it was God's mercy the petitioners had not come in numbers yesterday, when the Halberdiers were assembled, and when there must have been bloodshed. To which Mr. Speaker replied with gracious words, telling the citizens of London, through the worthy gentlemen then standing at their bar, that the House gave them thanks for their readiness on all occasions to comply with supplies for the public; that they would take into consideration, in due time, the particulars desired in the petition; and that they hoped to bring things to such result as would give them satisfaction.

When the Deputation left, a debate arose as to the necessity for immediate provision of the supplies which had been voted for Ireland, and as to the best mode of providing such satisfaction for the people as had just been promised to the London petitioners: and again the debate pointed in the old direction, which was that of printing, and circulating through the country, their Grand Remonstrance. The course taken by the King's advisers, indeed, had so far gone in the same direction, that even some royal partizans among the members had been constrained to admit the unlawfulness of the recent attempt to put external pressure on the Houses by means of armed watches and guards. The result of the present deliberation, therefore, appears to have been a kind of silent or unopposed understanding, that the printing of the

Remonstrance should be considered as soon as the bill then depending for the pressing of soldiers to serve against the Irish Rebellion should have been disposed of.

But again the ill-advised monarch precipitated this determination. The bill for raising such soldiers by Impressment was under debate on the morning of Tuesday the 14th of December, when a message was unexpectedly brought in, to the effect that his Majesty desired the Commons to attend him in the Lords' house. There, in brief intemperate phrase, he adverted to the Impressment bill which they were then discussing; warned them that, in the event of its passing, he should give his consent to it only with an express saving of his prerogative; and significantly added, that he was little beholding to "him "whoever at this time began this dispute." The Commons immediately returned to their house; voted it, upon the motion of Pym, a breach of all the ancient privileges both of Lords and Commons that his Majesty should so have taken notice of a bill whilst in progress; demanded a conference with the Lords; and, before the day closed, had obtained their full co-operation in drawing up a declaratory Protestation" of their privileges and liberties, and "a petitionary Remonstrance" against his Majesty's violation of them. Eighteen of the Lords, and double the number of the Commons, went with this Protestation to Whitehall.'

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1 The petitionary Remonstrance further requires that "his Majesty "will be pleased to discover the par"ties by whose information and evil "counsel his Majesty was induced to "this breach of privilege, that so "they may receive condign punish"ment for the same." In the face of which, Clarendon nevertheless hazards the statement in his History (ii. 70-1) that the man who had advised this breach of privilege, was, of all men in the world, Mr. Solicitor St. John! As if, supposing this were so, the King, who hated no one so much, would not thereon have been eager to give him up as his adviser in so direct

1

On the following morning, Wednesday the 15th of December, an unusual number of members were in attendance at an early hour in the House of Commons, and a suppressed excitement showed itself, as of some