WILLIAM AM) MAET.

59

twelve votes, of which ten were proxies.* Twenty one Peers chap.protested. The hill dropped. Two Masters in Chancery weresent to announce to the Commons the final resolution of thePeers. The Commons thought this proceeding unjustifiable insubstance and uncourteous in form. They determined to re-monstrate; and Somers drew up an excellent manifesto, inwhich the vile name of Oates was scarcely mentioned, and inwhich the Upper House was with great earnestness and gravityexhorted to treat judicial questions judicially, and not, underpretence of administering law, to make law.** The wretchedman, who had now a second time thrown the political worldinto confusion, received a pardon, and was set at liberty. Hisfriends in the Lower House moved an address to the Throne,requesting that a pension sufficient for his support might begranted to him.*** He was consequently allowed about threehundred a year, a sum which he thought unworthy of his ac-ceptance, and which he took with the savage snarl of dis-appointed greediness.

From the dispute about Oates sprang another dispute, whichmight have produced very serious consequences. The instru-ment which had declared William and Mary King and Queenwas a revolutionary instrument. It had been drawn up by anassembly unknown to the ordinary law, and had never receivedthe royal sanction. It was evidently desirable that this greatcontract between the governors and the governed, this titledeedby which theKing held his throne and the people their liberties,should be put into a strictly regular form. The Declaration ofRights was therefore turned into a Bill of Rights; and the Billof Rights speedily passed the Commons; but in the Lords diffi-culties arose.

* Lords’ Journals, July 30. 1689; Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary; Claren"don’s Diary, July 31. 1689.

** Soc the Commons’ Journals of July 31. and August 13. 1689.

*** Commons’Journals, Aug. 20.