Chapter IV: In the House of Commons (3)

"After this loss, to relish discontent,
Some one must be accused by Parliament.
All our miscarriages on Pett must fall,
His name alone seems fit to answer all.
Whose counsel first did this mad war beget?
Who all commands sold through the navy? Pett.
Who would not follow when the Dutch were beat?
Who treated out the time at Bergen? Pett.
Who the Dutch fleet with storms disabled met?
And, rifling prizes, them neglect? Pett.
Who with false news prevented the Gazette?
The fleet divided? writ for Rupert? Pett.
Who all our seamen cheated of their debt,
And all our prizes who did swallow? Pett.
Who did advise no navy out to set?
And who the forts left unprepared? Pett.
Who to supply with powder did forget
Languard, Sheerness, Gravesend, and Upnor? Pett.
Who all our ships exposed in Chatham net?
Who should it be but the fanatic Pett?"

This outburst can hardly fail to remind the reader of a famous outburst of Mr. Micawber's on the subject of Uriah Heep.

The satire concludes with the picture of the king in the dead shades of night, alone in his room, startled by loud noises of cannons, trumpets, and drums, and then visited by the ghost of his father.

"And ghastly Charles, turning his collar low,
The purple thread about his neck does show."

The pensive king resolves on Clarendon's disgrace, and on rising next morning seeks out Lady Castlemaine, Bennet, and Coventry, who give him the same advice. He knows them all three to be false to one another and to him, but is for the moment content to do what they wish.

I have omitted, in this review of a long poem, the earlier lines which deal with the composition of the House of Commons. All its parties are described, one after another--the old courtiers, the pension-hunters, the king's procurers, then almost a department of State.

"Then the Procurers under Prodgers filed
Gentlest of men, and his lieutenant mild
Bronkard, love's squire; through all the field arrayed,
No troop was better clad, nor so well paid."

Clarendon had his friends, soon sorely to be needed, and after them,

"Next to the lawyers, sordid band, appear,
Finch in the front and Thurland in the rear."

Some thirty-three members are mentioned by their names and habits. The Speaker, Sir Edward Turner, is somewhat unkindly described. Honest men are usually to be found everywhere, and they existed even in Charles the Second's pensionary Parliament:--

"Nor could all these the field have long maintained
But for the unknown reserve that still remained;
A gross of English gentry, nobly born,
Of clear estates, and to no faction sworn,
Dear lovers of their king, and death to meet
For country's cause, that glorious thing and sweet;
To speak not forward, but in action brave,
In giving generous, but in council grave;
Candidly credulous for once, nay twice;
But sure the devil cannot cheat them thrice."

No member of Parliament's library is complete without Marvell, who did not forget the House of Commons smoking-room:--

"Even iron Strangways chafing yet gave back
Spent with fatigue, to breathe awhile tabac."

Charles hastened to make peace with Holland. He was not the man to insist on vengeance or to mourn over lost prestige. De Ruyter had gone after suffering repulses at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Torbay. Peace was concluded at Breda on the 21st of July. We gave up Poleroone. _Per contra_ we gained a more famous place, New Amsterdam, rechristened New York in honour of the duke. All prisoners were to be liberated, and the Dutch, despite Sheerness and the _Royal Charles_, agreed to lower their flag to all British ships of war.

The fall, long pending, of Clarendon immediately followed the peace. Men's tempers were furious or sullen. Hyde had no more bitter, no more cruel enemy than Marvell. Why this was has not been discovered, but there was nothing too bad for Marvell not to believe of any member of Clarendon's household. All the scandals, and they were many and horrible, relating to Clarendon and his daughter, the Duchess of York, find a place in Marvell's satires and epigrams. To us Lord Clarendon is a grave and thoughtful figure, the statesman-author of _The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England_, that famous, large book, loftily planned, finely executed, full of life and character and the philosophy of human existence; and of his own _Autobiography_, a production which, though it must, like Burnet's _History_, be read with caution, unveils to the reader a portion of that past which usually is as deeply shrouded from us as the future. If at times we are reminded in reading Clarendon's _Life_ of the old steward in Hogarth's plate, who lifts up his hands in horror over the extravagance of his master, if his pedantry often irritates, and his love of place displeases, we recognise these but as the shades of the character of a distinguished and accomplished public servant. But to Marvell Clarendon was rapacious, ambitious, and corrupt, a man who had sold Oliver's Dunkirk to the French, and shared the price; who had selected for the king's consort a barren woman, so that his own damaged daughter might at least chance to become Queen of England, who hated Parliaments and hankered after a standing army, who took money for patents, who sold public offices, who was bribed by the Dutch about the terms of peace, who swindled the ruined cavaliers of the funds subscribed for their benefit, and had by these methods heaped together great wealth which he ostentatiously displayed. Even darker crimes than these are hinted at. That Marvell was wrong in his estimate of Clarendon's character now seems certain; Clarendon did not get a penny of the Dunkirk money. The case made against him by the House of Commons in their articles of impeachment was felt even at the time to be flimsy and incapable of proof, and in the many records that have come to light since Clarendon's day nothing has been discovered to give them support. And yet Marvell was a singularly well-informed member of Parliament, a shrewd, level-headed man of affairs, who knew Lord Clarendon in the way we know men we have to see on business matters, whose speeches we can listen to, and whose conduct we discuss and criticise. "Gently scan your brother-man" is a precept Marvell never took to heart; nor is the House of Commons a place where it is either preached or practised.

When Clarendon was well nigh at the height of his great unpopularity, he built himself a fine big house on a site given him by the king where now is Albemarle Street. Where did he get the money from? He employed, in building it, the stones of St. Paul's Cathedral. True, he bought the stones from the Dean and Chapter, but if the man you hate builds a great house out of the ruins of a church, is it likely that so trivial a fact as a cash payment for the materials is going to be mentioned? Splendid furniture and noble pictures were to be seen going into the new palace--the gifts, so it was alleged, of foreign ambassadors. What was the consideration for these donations? England's honour! Clarendon House was at once named Dunkirk House, Holland House, Tangiers House.

Here is Marvell upon it:--

UPON HIS HOUSE

"Here lie the sacred bones
Of Paul beguiled of his stones:
Here lie golden briberies,
The price of ruined families;
The cavalier's debenture wall,
Fixed on an eccentric basis:
Here's Dunkirk-Town and Tangier-Hull,
The Queen's marriage and all,
The Dutchman's _templum pacis_."

Clarendon's fall was rapid. He knew the house of Stuart too well to place any reliance upon the king. Evelyn visited him on the 27th of August 1667 after the seals had been taken away from him, and found him "in his bed-chamber very sad." His enemies were numerous and powerful, both in the House of Commons and at Court, where all the buffoons and ladies of pleasure hated him, because--so Evelyn says--"he thwarted some of them and stood in their way." In November Evelyn called again and found the late Lord-Chancellor in the garden of his new-built palace, sitting in his gout wheel-chair and watching the new gates setting up towards the north and the fields. "He looked and spoke very disconsolately. After some while deploring his condition to me, I took my leave. Next morning I heard he was gone."[139:1]

The news was true; on Saturday, the 29th of November, he drove to Erith, and after a terrible tossing on the nobly impartial Channel the weary man reached Calais, and died seven years later in Rouen, having well employed his leisure in completing his history. His palace was sold for half what it cost to the inevitable Monk, Duke of Albemarle.

On the 3rd of December Marvell writes that the House, having heard that Lord Clarendon had "withdrawn," forthwith ordered an address to his Majesty "that care might be taken for securing all the sea ports lest he should pass there." Marvell adds grimly, "I suppose he will not trouble you at Hull." The king took good care that his late Lord-Chancellor should escape. An act of perpetual banishment was at once passed, receiving the royal assent on the 19th of December.

Marvell was kept very busy during the early months of 1668, inquiring, as our English fashion is, into the "miscarriages of the late war." The House more than once sat from nine in the morning till eight at night, finding out all it could. "What money, arising by the poll money, had been applied to the use of the war?" This was an awkward inquiry. The House voted that the not prosecuting the first victory of June 1665 was a miscarriage, and one of the greatest: a snub to the Duke of York. The not furnishing the Medway with a sufficient guard of ships, though the king had then 18,000 men in his pay, was another great miscarriage. The paying of the fleet with tickets, without money, was a third great miscarriage. All this time Oliver Cromwell's skull was grinning on its perch in Westminster Hall.

Besides the honour of England, that of Hull had to be defended by its member. A young Lieutenant Wise, one of the Hull garrison, had in some boisterous fashion affronted the corporation and the mayor. On this correspondence ensues; and Marvell waits upon the Duke of Albemarle, the head of the army, to obtain reparation.

"I waited yesterday upon my Lord General--and first presented your
usual fee which the General accepted, but saying that it was
unnecessary and that you might have bin pleased to spare it, and he
should be so much more at liberty to show how voluntary and
affectionate he was toward your corporation. I returned the civilest
words I could coin on for the present, and rendered him your humble
thanks for his continued patronage of you ... and told him that you
had further sent him up a small tribute of your Hull liquor. He
thanked you again for all these things which you might--he said--have
spared, and added that if the greatest of your military officers
should demean himself ill towards you, he would take a course with
him."

A mealy-mouthed Lord-General drawing near his end.[140:1]

Wise was removed from the Hull garrison. The affronted corporation was not satisfied, and Marvell had to argue the point.

"And I hope, Sir, you will incline the Bench to consider whether I am
able or whether it be fit for me to urge it beyond that point. Yet it
is not all his (Wise's) Parliament men and relations that have
wrought me in the least, but what I simply conceive as the state of
things now to be possible and satisfactory. What would you have more
of a soldier than to run away and have him cashiered as to any
command in your garrison? The first he hath done and the second he
must submit to. And I assure you whatsoever he was among you, he is
here a kind of decrepit young gentleman and terribly crest-fallen."

The letter concludes thus:--

"For I assure you they use all the civility imaginable to you, and as
we sat there drinking a cup of sack with the General, Colonel
Legge[141:1] chancing to be present, there were twenty good things
said on all hands tending to the good fame, reputation, and advantage
of the Town, an occasion that I was heartily glad of."

Corporations may not have souls to save and bodies to kill, but evidently they have vanities to tickle.

In November 1669 the House is still busy over the accounts. Sir George Carteret was Treasurer of the Navy. Marvell refers to him in _The Last Instructions to a Painter_ as:--

"Carteret the rich did the accountants guide
And in ill English all the world defied."

The following letter of Marvell's gives an excellent account of House of Commons business, both how it is conducted, and how often it gets accidentally interrupted by other business unexpectedly cropping up:--

"_November 20, 1669._

"GENTLEMEN, MY VERY WORTHY FRIENDS,--Returning after our adjournment
to sit upon Wednesday, the House having heard what Sir G. Cartaret
could say for himselfe, and he then commended to withdraw, after a
considerable debate, put it to the question, whether he were guilty
of misdemeanour upon the Commissioners first observation, the words
of which were, That all monyes received by him out of His Majesty's
Exchequer are by the privy seales assigned for particular services,
but no such thing observed or specified in his payments, whereby he
hath assumed to himselfe a liberty to make use of the King's
treasure for other uses then is directed. The House dividing upon
the question, the ayes went out, and wondered why they were kept out
so extraordinary a time. The ayes proved 138 and the noes 129; and
the reason of the long stay then appeared; the tellers for the ayes
chanced to be very ill reckoners, so that they were forced to tell
severall times over in the House, and when at last the tellers for
the ayes would have agreed the noes to be 142, the noes would needs
say that they were 143, whereupon those for the ayes would tell once
more and then found the noes to be indeed but 129; and the ayes then
coming in proved to be 138; whereas if the noes had been content
with the first error of the tellers, Sir George had been quit upon
that observation. This I have told you so minutely because it is the
second fatall and ominous accident that hath fain out in the
divisions about Sir G. Cartaret. Thursday was ordered for the second
observation, the words of which are, Two hundred and thirty thousand
seven hundred thirty and one thousand pounds thirteen shillings and
ninepence, claimed as payd, and deposited for security of interest,
and yet no distinct specification of time appeares either on his
receits or payments, whereby no judgment can be made how interest
accrues; so that we cannot yet allow the same. But this day was
diverted and wholy taken up by a speciall report orderd by the
Committee for the Bill of Conventicles, that the House be informed
of severall Conventicles in Westminster which might be of dangerous
consequences. From hence arose much discourse; also of a report that
Ludlow was in England, that Commonwealths-men flock about the town,
and there were meetings said to be, where they talkt of New Modells
of Government; so that the House ordered a Committee to receive
informations both concerning Conventicles and these other dangerous
meetings; and then entered a resolution upon their books without
putting it to the question, That this House will adhere to His
Majesty, and the Government of Church and State as now established,
against all its enemyes. Friday having bin appointed, as I told you
in my former letter, for the House to sit in a grand Committee upon
the motion for the King's supply, was spent wholy in debate, whether
they should do so or no, and concluded at last in a consent, that
the sitting in a grand Committee upon the motion for the King's
supply should be put of till Friday next, and so it was ordered. The
reason of which kind of proceeding, lest you should thinke to arise
from an indisposition of the House, I shall tell you as they appeare
to me, to have been the expectation of what Bill will come from the
Lords in stead of that of ours which they threw out, and a desire to
redresse and see thoroughly into the miscarriages of mony before any
more should be granted. To-day the House hath bin upon the second
observation, and after a debate till foure a'clock, have voted him
guilty also of misdemeanor in that particular. The Commissioners are
ordered to attend the House again on Munday, which is done
constantly for the illustration of any matter in their report,
wherein the House is not cleare. And to say the truth, the House
receives great satisfaction from them, and shows them extraordinary
respect. These are the things of principall notice since my last."

Carteret eventually was censured and suspended and dismissed.

The sudden incursion of religion during a financial debate is highly characteristic of the House of Commons.

Whilst Queen Elizabeth and her advisers did succeed in making some sort of a settlement of religion having regard to the questions of her time, the Restoration bishops, an inferior set of men, wholly failed. The repressive legislation that followed upon the Act of Uniformity, succeeded in establishing and endowing (with voluntary contributions) what is sometimes called, absurdly enough, Political Dissent. On points, not of doctrine, but of ceremony, and of church government, one half of the religiously-minded community were by oaths and declarations, and by employing the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as "a picklock to a place," drawn out of the service of the State. Excluded from Parliament and from all corporate bodies, from grammar-schools and universities, English Dissent learned to live its own life, remote from the army, the navy, and the civil service, quite outside of what perhaps may be fairly called the main currents of the national life. Nonconformists venerated their own divines, were reared in their own academies and colleges, read their own books, went, when the modified law permitted it, to their own conventicles in back streets, and made it their boast that they had never entered their parish churches, for the upkeep of which they were compelled to subscribe--save for the purpose of being married. The nation suffered by reason of this complete severance. Trade excepted, there was no community of interest between Church and Dissent. Sobriety, gravity, a decent way of life, the sense of religious obligation (even when united with the habit of _extempore_ prayer, and a hereditary disrespect for bishops' aprons), are national assets, as the expression now goes, which cannot be disregarded with impunity.

The Conventicle Act Marvell refers to was a stringent measure, imposing pecuniary fines upon any persons of sixteen years of age or upwards who "under pretence of religion" should be present at any meeting of more than five persons, or more than those of the household, "in other manner than allowed by the Liturgy and practice of the Church of England." Heavier fines were imposed upon the preachers. The poet Waller, who was "nursed in Parliaments," having been first returned from Amersham in 1621, made a very sensible remark on the second reading: "Let them alone and they will preach against each other; by this Bill they will incorporate as being all under one calamity."[145:1] But by 144 to 78 the Bill was read, though it did not become law until the following session. An indignant Member of Parliament once told Cromwell that he would take the "sense" of the House against some proposal. "Very well," said Cromwell, "you shall take the 'sense' of the House, and I will take the 'nonsense,' and we will see who tells the most votes."

In February 1670 the king opened a new session, and in March Marvell wrote a private letter to a relative at Bordeaux, in which he "lends his mind out," after a fashion forbidden him in his correspondence with his constituents:--

"DEAR COUSIN,-- ... You know that we having voted the King, before
Christmas, four hundred thousand pounds, and no more; and enquiring
severely into ill management, and being ready to adjourn ourselves
till February, his Majesty, fortified by some undertakers of the
meanest of our House, threw up all as nothing, and prorogued us from
the first of December till the fourteenth of February. All that
interval there was great and numerous caballing among the courtiers.
The King also all the while examined at council the reports from the
Commissioners of Accounts, where they were continually
discountenanced, and treated rather as offenders than judges. In
this posture we met, and the King, being exceedingly necessitous for
money, spoke to us _stylo minaci et imperatorio_; and told us the
inconveniences which would fall on the nation by want of a supply,
should not ly at his door; that we must not revive any discord
betwixt the Lords and us; that he himself had examined the accounts,
and found every penny to have been employed in the war; and he
recommended the Scotch union. The Garroway party appeared with the
usual vigour, but the country gentlemen appeared not in their true
number the first day: so, for want of seven voices, the first blow
was against them. When we began to talk of the Lords, the King sent
for us alone, and recommended a rasure of all proceedings. The same
thing you know that we proposed at first. We presently ordered it,
and went to tell him so the same day, and to thank him. At coming
down, (a pretty ridiculous thing!) Sir Thomas Clifford carryed
Speaker and Mace, and all members there, into the King's cellar, to
drink his health. The King sent to the Lords more peremptoryly, and
they, with much grumbling, agreed to the rasure. When the
Commissioners of Accounts came before us, sometimes we heard them
_pro forma_, but all falls to dirt. The terrible Bill against
Conventicles is sent up to the Lords; and we and the Lords, as to
the Scotch busyness, have desired the King to name English
Commissioners to treat, but nothing they do to be valid, but on a
report to Parliament, and an act to confirm. We are now, as we
think, within a week of rising. They are making mighty alterations
in the Conventicle Bill (which, as we sent up, is the quintessence
of arbitrary malice), and sit whole days, and yet proceed but by
inches, and will, at the end, probably affix a Scotch clause of the
King's power in externals. So the fate of the Bill is uncertain, but
must probably pass, being the price of money. The King told some
eminent citizens, who applyed to him against it, that they must
address themselves to the Houses, that he must not disoblige his
friends; and if it had been in the power of their friends, he had
gone without money. There is a Bill in the Lords to encourage people
to buy all the King's fee-farm rents; so he is resolved once more to
have money enough in his pocket, and live on the common for the
future. The great Bill begun in the Lords, and which makes more ado
than ever any Act in this Parliament did, is for enabling Lord Ros,
long since divorced in the spiritual court, and his children
declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament, to marry again. Anglesey
and Ashly, who study and know their interests as well as any
gentlemen at court, and whose sons have marryed two sisters of Ros,
inheritrixes if he has no issue, yet they also drive on the Bill
with the greatest vigour. The King is for the Bill: the Duke of
York, and all the Papist Lords, and all the Bishops, except Cosins,
Reynolds, and Wilkins, are against it. They sat all Thursday last,
without once rising, till almost ten at night, in most solemn and
memorable debate, whether it should be read the second time, or
thrown out. At last, at the question, there were forty-two persons
and six proxys against it, and forty-one persons and fifteen proxys
for it. If it had not gone for it, the Lord Arlington had a power in
his pocket from the King to have nulled the proxys, if it had been
to the purpose. It was read the second time yesterday, and, on a
long debate whether it should be committed, it went for the Bill by
twelve odds, in persons and proxys. The Duke of York, the bishops,
and the rest of the party, have entered their protests, on the first
day's debate, against it. Is not this fine work? This Bill must come
down to us. It is my opinion that Lauderdale at one ear talks to the
King of Monmouth, and Buckingham at the other of a new Queen. It is
also my opinion that the King was never since his coming in, nay,
all things considered, no King since the Conquest, so absolutely
powerful at home, as he is at the present; nor any Parliament, or
places, so certainly and constantly supplyed with men of the same
temper. In such a conjuncture, dear Will, what probability is there
of my doing any thing to the purpose? The King would needs take the
Duke of Albemarle out of his son's hand to bury him at his own
charges. It is almost three months, and he yet lys in the dark
unburyed, and no talk of him. He left twelve thousand pounds a year,
and near two hundred thousand pounds in money. His wife dyed some
twenty days after him; she layed in state, and was buryed, at her
son's expence, in Queen Elizabeth's Chapel. And now,

"Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem,
Fortunam ex aliis.

"_March 21, 1670._"

This remarkable letter lets us into many secrets.

The Conventicle Bill is "the price of money." The king's interest in the Roos divorce case was believed to be due to his own desire to be quit of a barren and deserted wife.[148:1] Our most religious king had nineteen bastards, but no lawful issue. It may seem strange that so high a churchman as Bishop Cosin should have taken the view he did, but Cosin had a strong dash of the layman in his constitution, and was always an advocate of divorce, with permission to re-marry, in cases of adultery.

A further and amending Bill for rebuilding the city was before the House--one of eighty-four clauses, "the longest Bill, perhaps, that ever past in Parliament," says Marvell; but the Roos Divorce Bill and the Conventicle Bill proved so exciting in the House of Lords that they had little time for anything else. Union with Scotland, much desired by the king, but regarded with great suspicion by all Parliamentarians, fell flat, though Commissioners were appointed.

The Conventicle Bill passed the Lords, who tagged on to it a proviso Marvell refers to in his next letter, which the Lower House somewhat modified by the omission of certain words. Lord Roos was allowed to re-marry. The big London Bill got through.

Another private letter of Marvell's, of this date, is worth reading:--

"DEAREST WILL,--I wrote to you two letters, and payd for them from
the posthouse here at Westminster; to which I have had no answer.
Perhaps they miscarryed. I sent on an answer to the only letter I
received from Bourdeaux, and having put it into Mr. Nelthorp's hand,
I doubt not but it came to your's. To proceed. The same day (March
26th letter) my letter bore date, there was an extraordinary thing
done. The King, about ten o'clock, took boat, with Lauderdale only,
and two ordinary attendants, and rowed awhile as towards the bridge,
and soon turned back to the Parliament stairs, and so went up into
the House of Lords, and took his seat. Almost all of them were
amazed, but all seemed so; and the Duke of York especially was very
much surprized. Being sat, he told them it was a privilege he
claimed from his ancestors to be present at their deliberations.
That therefore, they should not, for his coming, interrupt their
debates, but proceed, and be covered. They did so. It is true that
this has been done long ago, but it is now so old, that it is new,
and so disused, that at any other but so bewitched a time as this,
it would have been looked on as an high usurpation, and breach of
privilege. He indeed sat still, for the most part, and interposed
very little; sometimes a word or two. But the most discerning
opinion was, that he did herein as he rowed for having had his face
first to the Conventicle Bill, he turned short to the Lord Ross's.
So that, indeed, it is credible, the King, in prospect of diminishing
the Duke of York's influence in the Lord's House, in this, or any
future matter, resolved, and wisely enough at present, to weigh up
and lighten the Duke's efficacy, by coming himself in person. After
three or four days continuance, the Lords were very well used to the
King's presence, and sent the Lord Steward and Lord Chamberlain, to
him, when they might wait, as an House on him, to render their
humble thanks for the honour he did them. The hour was appointed
them, and they thanked him, and he took it well. So this matter, of
such importance on all great occasions, seems riveted to them, and
us, for the future, and to all posterity. Now the Lord Ross's Bill
came in order to another debate, and the King present. Nevertheless
the debate lasted an entire day; and it passed by very few voices.
The King has ever since continued his session among them, and says
it is better than going to a play. In this session the Lords sent
down to us a proviso[149:1] for the King, that would have restored
him to all civil or ecclesiastical prerogatives which his ancestors
had enjoyed at any time since the Conquest. There was never so
compendious a piece of absolute universal tyranny. But the Commons
made them ashamed of it, and retrenched it. The Parliament was never
embarrassed, beyond recovery. We are all venal cowards, except some
few. What plots of State will go on this interval I know not. There
is a new set of justices of peace framing through the whole kingdom.
The governing cabal, since Ross's busyness, are Buckingham,
Lauderdale, Ashly, Orrery, and Trevor. Not but the other cabal too
have seemingly sometimes their turn. Madam,[150:1] our King's
sister, during the King of France's progress in Flanders, is to come
as far as Canterbury. There will doubtless be family counsels then.
Some talk of a French Queen to be then invented for our King. Some
talk of a sister of Denmark; others of a good virtuous Protestant
here at home. The King disavows it; yet he has sayed in publick, he
knew not why a woman may not be divorced for barrenness, as a man
for impotency. The Lord Barclay went on Monday last for Ireland, the
King to Newmarket. God keep, and increase you, in all
things.--Yours, etc.

"_April 14, 1670._"

FOOTNOTES:

[77:1] Clarendon's _Life_, vol. ii. p. 442.

[79:1] The clerks, however, only _counted_ the members who voted, and kept no record of their _names_. Mr. Gladstone remembered the alteration being made in 1836, and how unpopular it was. The change was a greater revolution than the Reform Bill. See _The Unreformed House of Commons_ by Edward Posselt, vol. i. p. 587.

[79:2]

"And a Parliament had lately met
Without a single Bankes."--_Praed_.

[82:1] See Dr. Halley's _Lancashire--its Puritanism and Nonconformity_, vol. ii. pp. 1-140, a most informing book.

[88:1] Clarendon's _History_, vol. vi. p. 249.

[90:1] An Historical Poem.--Grosart, vol. i. p. 343.

[92:1] Macaulay's _History_, vol. i. p. 154.

[95:1] I am acquainted with the romantic story which would have us believe that Lady Fauconberg, foretelling the time to come, had caused some other body than her father's to be buried in the Abbey (see _Notes and Queries_, 5th October 1878, and Waylen's _House of Cromwell_, p. 341).

[96:1] See _The Unreformed House of Commons_, by Edward Porritt, vol. i. p. 51. Marvell's old enemy, Parker, Bishop of Oxford, in his _History of his own Time_, composed after Marvell's death, reviles his dead antagonist for having taken this payment which, the bishop says, was made by a custom which "had a long time been antiquated and out of date." "Gentlemen," says the bishop, "despised so vile a stipend," yet Marvell required it "for the sake of a bare subsistence, although in this mean poverty he was nevertheless haughty and insolent." In Parker's opinion poor men should be humble.

[98:1] _Parliamentary History_, vol. iv., App. No. III.

[104:1] Mr. Gladstone's testimony is that no real improvement was effected until within the period of his own memory. 'Our services were probably without a parallel in the world for their debasement.' (See _Gleanings_, vi. p. 119.)

[106:1] There is a copy in the library of the _Athenaeum_, London: "A Relation of Three Embassies from his sacred Majestie Charles II. to the Great Duke of Muscovie, the King of Sweden, and the King of Denmark. Performed by the Right Ho^ble the Earle of Carlisle in the Years 1663 and 1664. Written by an Attendant on the Embassies, and published with his Lordship's approbation. London. Printed for John Starkie at the Miter in Fleet Street, near Temple Barr, 1669."

[109:1] "I have mentioned the dignity of his manners.... He was at his very best on occasion of Durbars, investitures, and the like.... It irritated him to see men giggling or jeering instead of acting their parts properly."--_Life of Lord Dufferin_, vol. ii. p. 317.

[116:1] _Hist. MSS. Com., Portland Papers_, vol. iii. p. 296.

[116:2] See above, vol. iii. p. 294.

[118:1] Sir Walter Besant doubted this. See his _London_.

[123:1] Mr. Goldwin Smith says this was the first pitched battle between Protection and Free Trade in England.--_The United Kingdom_, vol. ii. p. 25.

[126:1] Being curious to discover whether no "property" man raised his voice against these measures, I turned to that true "home of lost causes," the Protests of the House of Lords; and there, sure enough, I found one solitary peer, Henry Carey, Earl of Dover, entering his dissent to both Bills--to the Judicature Bill because of the unlimited power given to the judges, to the Rebuilding Bill because of the exorbitant powers entrusted to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to give away or dispose of the property of landlords.

[128:1] Clarendon's _Life_, vol. iii. p. 796.

[129:1] Clarendon's _Life_, vol. iii. p. 798.

[129:2] "Instructions to a Painter for the drawing of the Posture and Progress of His Majesty's forces at Sea under the command of His Highness Royal: together with the Battel and Victory obtained over the Dutch, June 3, 1665."--Waller's _Works_, 1730, p. 161.

[130:1] Sir John Denham's wife was reported to have been poisoned by a dish of chocolate, at the bidding of the Duchess of York.

[131:1] Clarendon's eldest son.

[139:1] It is disconcerting to find Evelyn recording this, his last visit to Clarendon, in his Diary under date of the 9th December, by which time the late Chancellor was in Rouen. One likes notes in a diary to be made contemporaneously and not "written-up" afterwards. Evelyn makes the same kind of mistake about Cromwell's funeral, misdating it a month.

[140:1] The duke died in 1670 and had a magnificent funeral on the 30th of April. See _Hist. MSS. Com., Duke of Portland's Papers_, vol. iii. p. 314. His laundress-Duchess did not long survive him.

[141:1] Afterwards Lord Dartmouth, a great friend of James the Second, but one who played a dubious part at the Revolution.

[145:1] The poet Waller was one of the wittiest speakers the House of Commons has ever known.

[148:1] For a full account of this remarkable case, see Clarendon's _Life_, iii. 733-9.

[149:1] "Provided, etc., that neither this Act nor anything therein contained shall extend to invalidate or avoid his Majesty's supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs [or to destroy any of his Majesty's rights powers or prerogatives belonging to the Imperial Crown of this realm or at any time exercised by himself or any of his predecessors Kings or Queens of England] but that his Majesty his heirs and successors may from time to time and at all times hereafter exercise and enjoy all such powers and authorities aforesaid as fully and amply as himself or any of his predecessors have or might have done the same anything in this Act (or any other law statute or usage to the contrary) notwithstanding." The words in brackets were rejected by the Commons. See _Parliamentary History_, iv. 446-7.

[150:1] Madame's business is now well known. The secret Treaty of Dover was the result of this visit.