1673. He grew violent; and could scarce speak with patience of the church of England and of the clergy. The earl of Arlington thought that the design was now lost, and that it was necessary for the king to make up with his people in the best manner he could. The earl of Shaftsbury was resolved to save himself on any terms b..

A session

of parlia

ment.

The money was exhausted: so it was necessary to have a session of parliament. And one was called in the beginning of the year. At the opening it, the king excused the issuing out the writs, as done to save time, and to have a full house at the first opening: but he left that matter wholly to them: he spoke of the declaration for liberty of conscience in another style: he said he had seen the good effects of it; and that he would stick to it, and maintain it: he said, he was engaged in a war for the honour of the nation, and therefore he demanded the supplies that were necessary to carry it on. On these heads lord Shaftsbury enlarged. But no part of his speech was more amazing than that, speaking of the war with the Dutch; he said, Delenda est Carthago. Yet, while he made a base complying speech in favour of the court and of the war, he was in a secret management with another party.

The house of commons was upon this all in a

b I heard the first duke of Bolton say, that at this time the duke of Buckingham, lord Shaftsbury, and a great deal of company, dined at his house, and after they had drank very freely, the duke of Buckingham began to tell some of their secrets, which Shaftsbury had no way to prevent but by giving

him the lie, which turned the discourse into a quarrel, that was made up before they parted. D. (The secrets were those of a ministry composed of whigs, romanists, and atheists, who were the advisers of the worst measures of this reign.)

ration was

roted il

flame. They saw popery and slavery lay at the 1673. bottom. Yet, that they might not grasp at too The decla much at once, they resolved effectually to break the whole design of popery. They argued the matter legal. of the declaration; whether it was according to law, or not. It was plainly an annulling of the penal law, made both against papists and dissenters. It was said, that though the king had a power of pardoning, yet he had not a power to authorize men to break laws. This must infer a power to alter the whole government. The strength of every law was the penalty laid upon offenders: and, if the king could secure offenders by indemnifying them beforehand, it was a vain thing to make laws; since by that maxim they had no force, but at the king's discretion. Those who pleaded for the declaration pre-347 tended to put a difference between penal laws in spiritual matters and all others: and said that the king's supremacy seemed to give him a peculiar authority over these: by virtue of this it was, that the synagogue of the Jews and the Walloon churches had been so long tolerated. But to this it was answered, that the intent of the law in asserting the supremacy was only to exclude all foreign jurisdiction, and to lodge the whole authority with the king: but that was still to be bounded and regulated by law and a difference was to be made between a connivance, such as that the Jews lived under, by which they were still at mercy, and a legal authority: the parliament had never disputed the legality of the patent for the Walloon congregations, which was granted to encourage strangers, professing the same religion, to come among us, when they were persecuted for it in their own coun

:

1673. try it was at first granted only to strangers: but

A bill for
a new test.

afterwards in the days of their children, who were natives, it had been made void: and now they were excepted by a special clause out of the act of uniformity. The house came quickly to a very unanimous resolution, that the declaration was against law. And they set that forth in an address to the king, in which they prayed that it might be called in. Some were studying to divert this, by setting them on to inquire into the issuing out the writs. And the court seemed willing that the storm should break on lord Shaftsbury, and would have gladly compounded the matter by making him the sacrifice, He saw into that; and so was resolved to change sides with the first opportunity.

The house was not content with this: but they brought in a bill disabling all papists from holding any employment or place at court; requiring all persons in public trust to receive the sacrament in a parish church, and to carry an attested certificate of that, with witnesses to prove it, into chancery, or the county sessions; and there to make a declaration renouncing transubstantiation in full and positive words. Great pains was taken by the court to divert this. They proposed that some regard might be had to protestant dissenters, and that their meetings might be allowed. By this means they hoped to have set them and the church party into new heats; for now all were united against popery. Love, the dissent- who served for the city of London, and was himself a dissenter, saw what ill effects any such quarrels might have: so he moved, that an effectual security might be found against popery, and that nothing might interpose till that was done. When that was

The pru

dence of

ers.

over, then they would try to deserve some favour: 1673. but at present they were willing to lie under the severity of the laws, rather than clog a more necessary work with their concerns. The chief friends of the 348 sects agreed to this. So a vote passed to bring in a bill in favour of protestant dissenters, though there was not time enough, nor unanimity enough, to finish one this session: for it went no farther than a second reading, but was dropt in the committee. But this prudent behaviour of theirs did so soften the church party, that there was no more votes nor bills offered at against them, even in that angry parliament, that had been formerly so severe upon them.

the house

The court was now in great perplexity. If they Debates in gave way to proceedings in the house of commons, of lords. there was a full stop put to the design for popery : and if they gave not way to it, there was an end of the war. The French could not furnish us with so much money as was necessary: and the shutting up the exchequer had put an end to all credit. The court tried what could be done in the house of lords. Lord Clifford resolved to assert the declaration with all the force and all the arguments he could bring for it. He shewed the heads he intended to speak on to the king, who approved of them, and suggested some other hints to him. He began the debate with rough words: he called the vote of the commons monstrum horrendum ingens, and run on in a very high strain. He said all that could be said, with great heat, and many indecent expressions. When he had done, the earl of Shaftsbury, to the amazement of the whole house, said, he must differ from the lord that spoke last toto cœlo. He

1673. said, while those matters were debated out of doors, he might think with others, that the supremacy, asserted as it was by law, did warrant the declaration: but now that such a house of commons, so loyal and affectionate to the king, were of another mind, he submitted his reasons to theirs: they were the king's great council: they must both advise and support him: they had done it; and would do it still, if their laws and their religion were once secure to them. The king was all in fury to be thus forsaken by his chancellor: and told lord Clifford, how well he was pleased with his speech, and how highly he was offended with the other. The debate went on, and upon a division the court had the majority. But against that vote about thirty of the most considerable of the house protested. So the court saw they had gained nothing in carrying a vote, that drew after it such a protestation ©.

This matter took soon after that a quick turn. It had been much debated in the cabinet, what the king should do. Lord Clifford and duke Lauderdale were for the king's standing his ground. Sir Ellis Leightoun assured me, that the duke of Buckingham and lord Berkeley offered to the king, if he would bring the army to town, that they would take 349 out of both houses the members that made the opposition. He fancied, the thing might have been

C

(There is no notice in the Journals of the House of Lords of any protest having been entered against a decision of that house respecting the king's declaration for liberty of conscience. Neither does Chandler in his History and Proceed

ings of the House of Lords state, that there was any division or protest on this occasion. This information was obligingly communicated by the reverend Mr. Bandinel, head keeper of the Bodleian library.)