A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days. Joseph Grego
and that the refusal of the Lords to proceed in parliament upon such impeachment is a denial of justice and a violation of the constitution.”26
This squabble between the two branches of the legislature exactly answered the king’s occasions; he made this a pretence for again dissolving the parliament, thus saving his brother and the Duchess of Portsmouth from the designs of the Commons. As it was, Charles coolly dismissed them as impracticable and useless, telling them, “he perceived there were great heats between the Lords and Commons, and their beginnings had been such as he could expect no good success of this parliament, and therefore thought fit to dissolve them.” This was on the 28th of March. On this point the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth, M.A., who has edited the “Bagford Ballads,” which illustrate the last years of the Stuarts, remarks—
“Had they been in London, there can be no doubt they would have resisted, calling the City to support them, and voted themselves permanent, to the defiance of the King and a commencement of civil war. He saw their plan, and conquered them.”
It was the lesson of “forty-one” to be taught again, as was prophetically hinted by “the ghost of the late Parliament to the New One to meet at Oxford.” In reference to the tyranny of the Commons, as opposed to the absolutism of the Crown, we find a Loyal Poem, entitled—
“THE PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED AT OXFORD.
“Under five hundred kings Three Kingdoms grone:
Go, Finch,27 Dissolve them, Charles is on the throne, And by the grace of God, will reign alone.
“The Presbyterians, sick of too much freedom,
Are ripe for Bethle’m, it’s high time to bleed ’em,
The Second Charles does neither fear nor need ’em.
“I’ll have the world know that I can dissipate
Those Impolitick Mushrooms of our State, ’Tis easier to dissolve than to create.
“They shan’t cramp Justice with their feigned flaws;
For since I govern only by the Laws, (!)
Why they should be exempt, I see no cause.”
The actual “Oxford Poem” in the Bagford Collection is addressed:—
“ON PARLIAMENT REMOVING FROM LONDON TO OXFORD.
“You London lads be merry,
Your Parliament friends have gone
That made us all so sorry
And would not leave us alone.”
“THE WHIGS’ DOWNFALL.
“To perfect which, they made their choice
Of parliaments of late,
Of members that had nought but voice,
And Megrims in their pate.
Wi Williams he the Speaker was, And is’t not wondrous strange; The reason’s plain, he told it was, Because they would not change; He told you truth, nor think it strange; He knew well their intent, They never meant themselves to change, But change the Government. For now cry they ‘The King’s so poor, He dares not with us part; And therefore we most loyally Will break his royal heart.’ ”
For a fine, ancient, divine-right-of-kings effusion commend us to the following full-flavoured High Tory manifesto:—
“TO MR. E. L. ON HIS MAJESTY’S DISSOLVING THE LATE PARLIAMENT AT OXFORD.
“An Atheist now must a Monster be,
Of strange gigantic birth
His omnipotence does let all men see,
That our King’s a God on earth.
“Fiat, says he, by proclamation, And the parliament is created: He repents of his work, the Dissolution Makes all annihilated.
“We Scholars were expell’d awhile,
To let the Senators in;
But they behav’d themselves as vile,
So we return again:
“And wonder to see our Geometry School
All round about be-seated,
Though there’s no need of an Euclid’s rule
To demonstrate ’em all defeated.
“The Commons their Voting Problems would
In Riddles so involve,
That what the Peers scarce understood,
The King was forc’d to solve.
“The Commons for a good omen chose
An old consulting station:
Being glad to dispossess their foes
O th’ House of Convocation.
“So Statesmen like poor scholars be,
For near the usual place
They stood, we know, for a great Degree,
But the King deny’d their Grace.
“Though sure he must his reason give,
And charge them of some crime:
Or else by course they’ll have reprieve
For this is the Third time.
“It was because they did begin,
With insolent behaviour:
And who should expiate their sin
The King himself’s no Saviour.
“Their faults grew to a bulk so high,
As mercy did fore-stall:
So Charter forfeited thereby,
They must like Adam fall.
“It is resolv’d the Duke shall fail
A Sceptre to inherit:
Nor right nor desert shall prevail,
’Tis Popish to plead merit.
“Let the King respect the Duke his brother,
And keep affection still,
As duly to the Church his mother:
In both they’ll cross his will.
“They would Dissenters harmless save,
And penalties repeal;
As if they’d humour thieves, who crave
A liberty to steal.
“Thus he that does a pardon lack
For Treason damn’d to dy.
They’d tempt, poor man, to save his neck,
By adding perjury.28
“The Nobles threw th’ Impeachment out29 Because, no doubt, they saw ’Twas best to bring his cause about, But not to th’ Commons Law.