And now the time had arrived when the English Parliament was to meet.
The members of the House of Commons who had repaired to the capital were
so numerous that there was much doubt whether their chamber, as it was
then fitted up, would afford sufficient accommodation for them. They
employed the days which immediately preceded the opening of the session
in talking over public affairs with each other and with the agents
of the government. A great meeting of the loyal party was held at the
Fountain Tavern in the Strand; and Roger Lestrange, who had recently
been knighted by the King, and returned to Parliament by the city of
Winchester, took a leading part in their consultations. [301]

It soon appeared that a large portion of the Commons had views which did
not altogether agree with those of the Court. The Tory country gentlemen
were, with scarcely one exception, desirous to maintain the Test Act and
the Habeas Corpus Act; and some among them talked of voting the revenue
only for a term of years. But they were perfectly ready to enact severe
laws against the Whigs, and would gladly have seen all the supporters
of the Exclusion Bill made incapable of holding office. The King, on the
other hand, desired to obtain from the Parliament a revenue for life,
the admission of Roman Catholics to office, and the repeal of the Habeas
Corpus Act. On these three objects his heart was set; and he was by no
means disposed to accept as a substitute for them a penal law against
Exclusionists. Such a law, indeed, would have been positively unpleasing
to him; for one class of Exclusionists stood high in his favour, that
class of which Sunderland was the representative, that class which had
joined the Whigs in the days of the plot, merely because the Whigs were
predominant, and which had changed with the change of fortune. James
justly regarded these renegades as the most serviceable tools that he
could employ. It was not from the stouthearted Cavaliers, who had
been true to him in his adversity, that he could expect abject and
unscrupulous obedience in his prosperity. The men who, impelled, not
by zeal for liberty or for religion, but merely by selfish cupidity and
selfish fear, had assisted to oppress him when he was weak, were the
very men who, impelled by the same cupidity and the same fear, would
assist him to oppress his people now that he was strong. [302] Though
vindictive, he was not indiscriminately vindictive. Not a single
instance