reasons, and began to make amendments on the
bill sent up by the commons. This attempt was highly resented by the
lower house as an encroachment on the right, which they pretended to
possess alone, of granting money to the crown. Many remonstrances passed
between the two houses; and by their altercations the king was obliged
to prorogue the parliament; and he thereby lost the money which was
intended him.

{1671.} This is the last time that the peers have revived any
pretensions of that nature. Ever since, the privilege of the commons,
in all other places except in the house of peers, has passed for
uncontroverted.

There was another private affair transacted about this time, by which
the king was as much exposed to the imputation of a capricious lenity,
as he was here blamed for unnecessary severity. Blood, a disbanded
officer of the protector's, had been engaged in the conspiracy for
raising an insurrection in Ireland; and on account of this crime,
he himself had been attainted, and some of his accomplices capitally
punished. The daring villain meditated revenge upon Ormond, the lord
lieutenant. Having by artifice drawn off the duke's footmen, he attacked
his coach in the night time, as it drove along St. James's Street in
London; and he made himself master of his person. He might here have
finished the crime, had he not meditated refinements in his vengeance:
he was resolved to hang the duke of Tyburn and for that purpose bound
him and mounted him on horseback behind one of his companions. They were
advanced a good way into the fields, when the duke, making efforts for
his liberty, threw himself to the ground, and brought down with him the
assassin to whom he was fastened. They were struggling together in the
mire, when Ormond's servants, whom the alarm had reached, came and saved
him. Blood and his companions, firing their pistols in a hurry at the
duke, rode off, and saved themselves by means of the darkness.

Buckingham was at first, with some appearances of reason, suspected to
be the author of this attempt. His profligate character, and his enmity
against Ormond, exposed him to that imputation; Ossory soon after came
to court, and seeing Buckingham stand by the king, his color rose, and
he could not forbear expressing himself to this purpose: "My lord,
I know well that you are at the bottom of this late attempt upon my
father: but I give you warning; if by any means he come to a violent
end, I shall not be at