in form, he would renew it again and again, till it should be
rendered entirely complete; but that he was resolved to deprive him of
all employments, and to remove him from court.

The commons were nowise satisfied with this concession They pretended,
that no pardon of the crown could be pleaded in bar of an impeachment,
by the commons. The prerogative of mercy had hitherto been understood to
be altogether unlimited in the king; and this pretension of the commons,
it must be confessed, was entirely new. It was, however, not unsuitable
to the genius of a monarchy strictly limited, where the king's ministers
are supposed to be forever accountable to national assemblies, even for
such abuses of power as they may commit by orders from their master.
The present emergence, while the nation was so highly inflamed, was the
proper time for pushing such popular claims; and the commons failed
not to avail themselves of this advantage. They still insisted On the
impeachment of Danby. The peers, in compliance with them, departed from
their former scruples, and ordered Danby to be taken into custody.
Danby absconded. The commons passed a bill, appointing him to surrender
himself before a certain day, or, in default of it, attainting him. A
bill had passed the upper house, mitigating the penalty to banishment;
but after some conferences, the peers thought proper to yield to the
violence of the commons, and the bill of attainder was carried. Rather
than undergo such severe penalties, Danby appeared, and was immediately
committed to the Tower.

While a Protestant nobleman met with such violent prosecution, it
was not likely that the Catholics would be overlooked by the zealous
commons. The credit of the Popish plot still stood upon the oaths of a
few infamous witnesses. Though such immense preparations were supposed
to have been made in the very bowels of the kingdom, no traces of them,
after the most rigorous inquiry, had as yet appeared. Though so many
thousands, both abroad and at home, had been engaged in the dreadful
secret, neither hope, nor fear, nor remorse, nor levity, nor suspicions,
nor private resentment, had engaged any one to confirm the evidence.
Though the Catholics, particularly the Jesuits, were represented as
guilty of the utmost indiscretion, insomuch that they talked of the
king's murder as common news, and wrote of it in plain terms by the
common post, yet, among the great number of letters seized, no one
containe