UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND.

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system of procedure. What was needed was not a new right, chap.but a prompt and searching remedy; and such a remedy the -Habeas Corpus Act supplied. The King would gladly have Habeasrefused his consent to that measure: but he was about to Act!appeal from his Parliament to his people on the question ofthe succession; and he could not venture, at so critical amoment, to reject a bill which was in the highest degreepopular.

On the same day, the press of England became for a shorttime free. In old times printers had been strictly controlledby the Court of Star Chamber. The Long Parliament hadabolished the Star Chamber, but had, in spite of the philoso-phical and eloquent expostulation of Milton, established andmaintained a censorship. Soon after the Restoration, an Acthad been passed which prohibited the printing of unlicensedbooks; and it had been provided that this Act should con-tinue in force till the end of the firt session of the nextParliament. That moment had now arrived; and the King,in the very act of dismissing the Houses, emancipated thepress.

Shortly after the prorogation came a dissolution and an- Secmid 1other general election. The zeal and strength of the opposi- el t e J‘i I ° g 11tion were at the height. The cry for the Exclusion Bill waslouder than ever; and with this cry was mingled another cry,which fired the blood of the multitude, but which was heardwith regret and alarm by all judicious friends of freedom.

Not only the rights of the Duke of York, an avowed Papist,but those of his two daughters, sincere and zealous Protestants,were assailed. It was confidently affirmed that the eldestnatural son of the King had been born in wedlock, and waslawful heir to the crown.

Charles, while a wanderer on the Continent, had fallen in Popuia-at the Hague with Lucy Walters, a Welsh girl of great beauty, Mon-but of weak understanding and dissolute manners. She moulh '