taking His Majesty's answer into consideration. John Coke,
member for Derby, though a noted Tory, seconded Wharton. "I hope," he
said, "that we are all Englishmen, and that we shall not be frightened
from our duty by a few high words."

It was manfully, but not wisely, spoken. The whole House was in a
tempest. "Take down his words," "To the bar," "To the Tower," resounded
from every side. Those who were most lenient proposed that the offender
should be reprimanded: but the ministers vehemently insisted that he
should be sent to prison. The House might pardon, they said, offences
committed against itself, but had no right to pardon an insult offered
to the crown. Coke was sent to the Tower. The indiscretion of one
man had deranged the whole system of tactics which had been so ably
concerted by the chiefs of the opposition. It was in vain that, at that
moment, Edward Seymour attempted to rally his followers, exhorted
them to fix a day for discussing the King's answer, and expressed his
confidence that the discussion would be conducted with the respect due
from subjects to the sovereign. The members were so much cowed by the
royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the rudeness of Coke, that it
would not have been safe to divide. [26]

The House adjourned; and the ministers flattered themselves that the
spirit of opposition was quelled. But on the morrow, the nineteenth of
November, new and alarming symptoms appeared. The time had arrived for
taking into consideration the petitions which had been presented from
all parts of England against the late elections. When, on the first
meeting of the Parliament, Seymour had complained of the force and fraud
by which the government had prevented the sense of constituent bodies
from being fairly taken, he had found no seconder. But many who had then
flinched from his side had subsequently taken heart, and, with Sir John
Lowther, member for Cumberland, at their head, had, before the recess,
suggested that there ought to be an enquiry into the abuses which had
so much excited the public mind. The House was now in a much more angry
temper; and many voices were boldly raised in menace and accusation. The
ministers were told that the nation expected, and should have, signal
redress. Meanwhile it was dexterously intimated that the best atonement
which a gentleman who had been brought into the House by irregular means
could make to the public was to use his ill acquired power in defence