they
would adhere to their amendments. Forty-seven had voted for adhering,
and thirty-four for giving way. The House of Commons broke up with
gloomy looks, and in great agitation. All London looked forward to the
next day with painful forebodings. The general feeling was in favour
of the bill. It was rumoured that the majority which had determined to
stand by the amendments had been swollen by several prelates, by several
of the illegitimate sons of Charles the Second, and by several needy and
greedy courtiers. The cry in all the public places of resort was that
the nation would be ruined by the three B's, Bishops, Bastards, and
Beggars. On Wednesday the tenth, at length, the contest came to a
decisive issue. Both Houses were early crowded. The Lords demanded a
conference. It was held; and Pembroke delivered back to Seymour the
bill and the amendments, together with a paper containing a concise,
but luminous and forcible, exposition of the grounds on which the Lords
conceived themselves to be acting in a constitutional and strictly
defensive manner. This paper was read at the bar; but, whatever effect
it may now produce on a dispassionate student of history, it produced
none on the thick ranks of country gentlemen. It was instantly resolved
that the bill should again be sent back to the Lords with a peremptory
announcement that the Commons' determination was unalterable.

The Lords again took the amendments into consideration. During the last
forty-eight hours, great exertions had been made in various quarters to
avert a complete rupture between the Houses. The statesmen of the junto
were far too wise not to see that it would be madness to continue the
struggle longer. It was indeed necessary, unless the King and the Lords
were to be of as little weight in the State as in 1648, unless the
House of Commons was not merely to exercise a general control over the
government, but to be, as in the days of the Rump, itself the whole
government, the sole legislative chamber, the fountain from which were
to flow all those favours which had hitherto been in the gift of the
Crown, that a determined stand should be made. But, in order that such a
stand might be successful, the ground must be carefully selected; for
a defeat might be fatal. The Lords must wait for some occasion on
which their privileges would be bound up with the privileges of all
Englishmen, for some occasion on which the constituent bodies would,
if an appeal were