the first blow. The King
again offered to consent to anything but the Exclusion Bill. The Commons
were determined to accept nothing but the Exclusion Bill. In a few days
the Parliament was again dissolved.

The King had triumphed. The reaction, which had begun some months before
the meeting of the House at Oxford, now went rapidly on. The nation,
indeed, was still hostile to Popery: but, when men reviewed the whole
history of the plot, they felt that their Protestant zeal had hurried
them into folly and crime, and could scarcely believe that they had been
induced by nursery tales to clamour for the blood of fellow subjects
and fellow Christians. The most loyal, indeed, could not deny that the
administration of Charles had often been highly blamable. But men who
had not the full information which we possess touching his dealings with
France, and who were disgusted by the violence of the Whigs, enumerated
the large concessions which, during the last few years he had made to
his Parliaments, and the still larger concessions which he had declared
himself willing to make. He had consented to the laws which excluded
Roman Catholics from the House of Lords, from the Privy Council, and
from all civil and military offices. He had passed the Habeas Corpus
Act. If securities yet stronger had not been provided against the
dangers to which the constitution and the Church might be exposed under
a Roman Catholic sovereign, the fault lay, not with Charles who had
invited the Parliament to propose such securities, but with those Whigs
who had refused to hear of any substitute for the Exclusion Bill. One
thing only had the King denied to his people. He had refused to take
away his brother's birthright. And was there not good reason to believe
that this refusal was prompted by laudable feelings? What selfish motive
could faction itself impute to the royal mind? The Exclusion Bill did
not curtail the reigning King's prerogatives, or diminish his income.
Indeed, by passing it, he might easily have obtained an ample addition
to his own revenue. And what was it to him who ruled after him? Nay, if
he had personal predilections, they were known to be rather in favour
of the Duke of Monmouth than of the Duke of York. The most natural
explanation of the King's conduct seemed to be that, careless as was
his temper and loose as were his morals, he had, on this occasion, acted
from a sense of duty and honour. And, if so, would the nation compel
him