parliament and members thereof, in whose well or ill doing consisted our happiness or misfortune: they promised assistance, if need were; and I believe would have stoutly stood to it for defence of the parliament or members thereof."

Sir Philip Warwick affirms that the King's intention of coming to the House was betrayed by "that busy stateswoman the Countess of Carlisle, who had now changed her gallant from Strafford to Mr. Pym, and was become such a shesaint that she frequented their sermons and took notes." Pym, therefore, was no doubt the "certain member of the House" who, according to Rushworth, had "private intimation from the Countess of Carlisle, sister to the Earl of Northumberland, that endeavours would be used this day to apprehend the five members," and upon whose information the five were required by the House to depart forthwith, "to avoid combustion in the House." To this command all yielded ready obedience, except only Mr. Strode, who "was obstinate, till Sir Walter Earle, his ancient acquaintance, pulled him out by force, the King being at that time entering into the New Palace Yard, in Westminster." *

In a few minutes more the King was actually in the House. "As his Majesty came through Westminster Hall," continues Rushworth, "the commanders, reformadoes, &c., that attended him, made a lane on both sides of the Hall, through which his Majesty passed, and came up the stairs to the House of Commons, and stood before the guard of pensioners and halberteers, who also attended the King's person; and, the door of the House of Commons being thrown open, his Majesty entered the House; and as he passed up towards the chair he cast his eye on the right hand, where Mr. Pym used to sit; but his Majesty, not seeing him there (knowing him well), went up to the chair, and said, ‹ By your leave, Mr. Speaker, I must borrow your chair a little;' whereupon the Speaker came out of the chair, and his Majesty stepped up into it." Clarendon's account is, that," in the afternoon, the King, attended only by his own usual guard, and some few gentlemen who put themselves into their company in the way, came to the House of Commons; and, commanding all his attendants to wait at the door, and give offence to no man, himself, with his nephew, the Prince Elector, went into the House, to the great amazement of all." This nephew was Charles, the Elector Palatine, the elder brother of Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice; but it is remarkable, that, if he actually accompanied his uncle into the House, the circumstance should not be mentioned by Rushworth, who, sitting at the table in the execution of his office of assistant clerk, had the best opportunity of seeing all that passed, and has evidently been anxious to make his relation as complete as possible. He goes on to inform us that, after Charles "had stood in the chair awhile, casting his eye upon the members as they stood

notice came.

* In a speech made in Richard Cromwell's parliament on the 7th of February, 1659, Hazlerig said :—“ The King demanded five members by his Attorney-General. He then came personally to the House, with five hundred men at his heels, and sat in your chair. It pleased God to hide those members. I shall never forget the kindness of that great lady, the Lady Carlisle, that gave timely notice. Yet some of them were in the House after the It was questioned if, for the safety of the House, they should be gone; but the debate was shortened, and it was thought fit for them in discretion to withdraw. Mr. Hampden and myself, being then in the House, withdrew. Away we went. The King immediately came in, and was in the House before we got to the water."—Burton's Diary, iii. 93. According to this account Hampden and Hazlerig would appear to have been the only two of the five members actually in the House when the news arrived that his Majesty was coming. But Strode at any rate must also have been present. Clarendon's statement, that all the accused members bad "withdrawn from the House about half an hour before the King came thither," is clearly incorrect.

up uncovered, but could not discern any of the five members to be therenor, indeed, were they easy to be discerned, had they been there, among so many bare faces all standing up together"—he addressed a short speech to the House, in which he told them that he was sorry for this occasion of coming to them, but that in case of treason no person had privilege, and he was therefore come to know if any of the persons accused were here, for have them he must, wheresoever he might find them. "Well," added he, "since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect from you that shall send them unto me as soon as they return you hither." And after a few more such ineffectual sentences he came down. But it appears to have been before he commenced this formal oration that, while he was still looking about the House, he asked the Speaker, who was standing on the floor beside the chair, whether any of the five members were in the House, whether he saw any of them, and where they were; to which series of questions the Speaker, Lenthall, falling on his knee, answered, that he had neither eyes to sce, nor tongue to speak, in that place, but as the House was pleased to direct him, whose servant he was there; and humbly begged his Majesty's pardon that he could give no other answer. "The King," Rushworth proceeds, "having concluded his speech, went out of the House again, which was in great disorder; and many members cried out aloud, so as he might hear them, Privilege! Privilege!' and forthwith adjourned till the next day at one of the clock." A curious anecdote is added, in which the writer himself figures:-that same evening his Majesty sent the usher of the House of Peers down to the House of Commons for Rushworth, whom he had observed taking down his speech in characters, or short-hand, at the clerk's table; and when the faithful chronicler of these transactions was brought to him he commanded him to give him a copy of the speech. Rushworth humbly represented the danger he might incur by reporting to his Majesty anything that had been spoken in the House; but Charles smartly replied, "I do not ask you to tell me what was said by any member of the House, but what I said myself." "Whereupon," continues the account, he readily gave obedience to his Majesty's command, and in his Majesty's presence, in the room called the Jewel House, he transcribed his Majesty's speech out of his characters, his Majesty staying in the room all the while; and then and there presented the same to the King, which his Majesty was pleased to command to be sent speedily to the press, and the next morning it came forth in print."

We cannot further pursue in detail the history of this perhaps the most momentous event of which St. Stephen's Chapel ever was the scene. It is said that when Charles returned to Whitehall with the news of the failure of his attempt the Queen fell into a rage and called him poltroon. On the next day, Wednesday, the 5th, the Commons resolved, that, whereas his Majesty did the day before come to the House, " attended with a great multitude of men armed in a warlike manner with halberts, swords, and pistols, who came up to the very door of the House, and placed themselves there, and in other places and passages near to the House, to the great terror and disturbance of the members thereof then sitting," the same was a high breach of the rights and privileges of parliament," and that the House could sit no longer without a full vindication thereof, and a sufficient guard wherein they might confide. This same morning Charles had

gone to the City, and, presenting himself in the Guildhall, where the Common Council were assembled to meet him, declared that he was come to demand the accused members, who, he believed, were "shrowded in the City." But, although he added sundry gracious assurances, and was sumptuously entertained at dinner by one of the sheriffs, whom, being of the two, Clarendon tells us, the one that was thought the least inclined to his service, he thought to flatter by inviting himself to his house on this occasion, he could obtain no intelligence as to the persons of whom he was in quest. The five members had indeed betaken themselves to what Clarendon calls "their stronghold, the City;" and it was very well known where they were-" all together in one house in Coleman Street," in the close neighbourhood of Merchant Tailors' Hall, where a Committee of the House of Commons sat for several days taking evidence on the subject of his Majesty's coming to the House; but they were as safe there from Charles and his officers as if all London had been an army of protection around them. When the House, which had adjourned on the 5th, met again on Tuesday, the 11th, the five accused members were brought by water from their lodgings in the City about two o'clock in the afternoon, guarded by the sheriffs and trainbands of London and Westminster to the number of 2000 in armed boats, while many thousands of spectators accompanied the procession along the banks of the river, making the air ring with their exulting clamours; and a body of 4000 horsemen from Buckinghamshire received them at their landing. Some of the people, Clarendon records, as they passed by Whitehall, asked, with much contempt, what was become of the King and his cavaliers, and whither he was gone? Charles had the day before, about three o'clock in the afternoon, left that palace with his wife and children, and fled to Hampton Court-from which after a few weeks he withdrew to York, there to commence his preparations for coercing the parliament by force of arms. In the following summer the civil war broke out, that, with some intermissions, kept England flowing with blood for nine years; nor did the unhappy monarch ever see cither London or Whitehall again till he was brought back a captive to St. James's, on the 19th of January, 1649, to be put to death in front of the Banqueting House at Whitehall eleven days

after.

In the tumultuous times that followed this inauspicious visit of Charles I., the Commons were repeatedly obliged to submit to the repetition, with improvements, of his violent and armed assault. In July 1647 the army forced them to expel, or suspend, as it was phrased, eleven obnoxious individuals of their number-Denzil Holles and the other leaders of the Presbyterian party-by merely approaching the capital and threatening the employment of force. As Holles himself has said, in his passionate and prolix relation :-"The eleven members must out. The House of Commons will not do it; Mr. Joyce and his agitators shall. For this Sir Thomas Fairfax takes up his quarters at Uxbridge; some of his forces advance within three or four miles of Westminster; he sends his warrants for provisions into the very suburbs; a party of horse is commanded to be ready at a rendezvous to march up to the parliament. Then here is the case of the cleven members; if they stay, a violence shall be offered to the House; the members shall be pulled out by the ears; and then . . farewell this and all future parliaments." Then about a month after, on Monday,

the 26th of July, came the actual attack upon the House by the apprentices from the city of London, in the interest of the Presbyterians, who, after having first forced the trembling legislature to pass an act about the militia such as they desired, becoming mixed, as the evening grew late, with soldiers and other idlers, "then would make the Houses," says Holles, "do this and the other thing,vote the King's coming to London, the calling in of the eleven members, and I know not what else; and would not suffer the parliament-men, either of the one House or the other, to stir till all was voted and passed which they desired; keeping them there till, I think, nine of the clock at night." The next day the Speaker, Lenthall, and most of the Independent members fled to the army; with which they remained till Fairfax a few days after brought them all back with him, and, marching direct to the House, replaced Lenthall in the Speaker's chair, quietly turning out Mr. Henry Pelham, whom the Presbyterians during their brief ascendency had chosen in his room. But the sharpest purification of all was that famous one administered on the 6th and 7th of December, in the following year, 1648, by Colonel Pride, who, the House having been first surrounded by a regiment of horse and another of foot, took his place in the lobby, with a list of the members in his hand, and Lord Grey by his side to point out their persons; when nearly a hundred and fifty of the Presbyterian members were taken into custody as they passed out, of whom about a third were sent to prison and the rest turned adrift, with orders from their armed masters never again to show their faces in St. Stephen's Chapel. Then, last of all, after the once mighty Long Parliament had been reduced to a "Rump" of about fifty individuals, came Cromwell himself, and fairly kicked it out of existence in the most singular style. The Lord General had been engaged in deliberating on the measures to be taken for settling the Commonwealth with the principal officers of the army and other friends at Whitehall on the morning of Wednesday, the 20th of April, 1653, when Colonel Ingoldsby arrived in haste with the information that the Commons were on the point of passing the act for their dissolution, which had been for some time under discussion, in such a form as, besides unduly prolonging their own authority, would throw open the doors of the next Parliament to the interests which the military power had been employing all its late efforts to depress and destroy. Cromwell instantly put himself at the head of a party of soldiers, and marched down to Palace-yard. Leaving the soldiers in the lobby, he entered the House, and sat for some time without interrupting the debate. At length, when the Speaker was about to put the question, he whispered to Harrison, "This is the time; I must do it," and, taking off his hat, rose and proceeded to address the House. According to one account, his demeanour was for a while calm and his language moderate; but he gradually waxed warm and violent. "He loaded the parliament," says Ludlow, "with the vilest reproaches, charging them not to have a heart to do anything for the public good, to have espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery and the lawyers, who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression, accusing them of an intention to perpetuate themselves in power had they not been forced to the passing of this act (the act for their dissolution), which he affirmed they designed never to observe, and thereupon, told them that the Lord had done with them, and had chosen other instruments for the carrying on

his work that were more worthy. This he spoke with so much passion and discomposure of mind as if he had been distracted." Then he seems to have sat down or paused; on which "Sir Peter Wentworth," continues Ludlow, "stood up to answer him, and said that this was the first time that ever he had heard such unbecoming language given to the parliament, and that it was the more horrid in that it came from their servant, and their servant whom they had so highly trusted and obliged; but, as he was going on, the General stepped into the midst of the House, where, continuing his distracted language, he said, 'Come, come, I will put an end to your prating:' then, walking up and down the House like a madman, and kicking the ground with his feet, he cried out, 'You are no parliament; I say you are no parliament; I will put an end to your sitting: Call them in, call them in!' Whereupon the serjeant attending the parliament opened the doors, and Lieutenant-Colonel Worsley, with two files of musqueteers, entered the House." This appears to be a more probable account than that given by Whitelock, who says that Cromwell, having reached the House, "led a file of musqueteers in with him; the rest he placed at the door of the House and in the lobby before it: in this manner entering the House, he in a furious manner bid the Speaker leave his chair, told the House that they had sat long enough, unless they had done more good," &c. Other relations of this extraordinary scene concur with that of Ludlow in making the bold senate-crusher to have entered the House alone, and to have both sat for some time and delivered his first speech before he called in the soldiers. Harrison, in his speech on the 7th of February, 1659, describes the musqueteers as having come in "with their hats on their heads, and their guns loaden with bullets." When they entered, Sir Harry Vane said aloud from his place, but probably without rising, “This is not honest; yea, it is against morality and common honesty." Cromwell doubtless thought the moment singularly chosen for such wise saws, and that neither common honesty nor common-place had anything to do with the business in hand; but he satisfied himself with answering his old friend and brother saint in the style familiar to both of them, "crying out with a loud voice, 'O Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane! the Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!" Then turning and pointing to one member who has had the luck to escape having his name recorded, he called out, "There sits a drunkard!" next darting his eyes upon poor Sir Peter Wentworth and Henry Martin, he denounced them as a pair of libertines by a very plain epithet; others he called corrupt and unjust men, and scandals to the profession of the gospel; and, telling the whole pack of them that it was not fit they should sit as a parliament any longer, desired them to go away. He began his application of actual force with the mace that lay on the table before the Speaker:-" What shall we do with this bauble?" he exclaimed: "Here," he added, calling to one of the soldiers, "take it away." Then, when he had brought all into this disorder," continues Ludlow, "Major-General Harrison went to the Speaker [still our old friend Lenthall] as he sat in the chair, and told him that, seeing things were reduced to this pass, it would not be convenient for him to remain there. The Speaker answered that he would not come down unless he were forced. Sir,' said Harrison, I will lend you my hand;' and, thereupon putting his hand within his, the Speaker