256

HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

ciiap. The party which preponderated in the House of Commons,Executiou bitterly mortified by this defeat, found some consolation in°ord Uf ~ shedding the blood of Roman Catholics. William Howard,Viscount Stafford, one of the unhappy men who had beenaccused of a share in the plot, was brought before the bar ofhis peers; and on the testimony of Oates and of two other falsewitnesses, Dugdale and Turberville, was found guilty of hightreason, and suffered death. But the circumstances of his trialand execution ought to have given an useful warning to theWhig leaders. A large and respectable minority of the Houseof Lords pronounced the prisoner not guilty. The multitude,which a few months before had received the dying declarationsof Oates’s victims with mockery and execrations, now loudlyexpressed a belief thatStaffordwas a murdered man. When hewith his last breath protested his innocence, the cry was, “Godbless you, my Lord! We believe you, my Lord.” A judiciousobserver might, easily have predicted that the blood then shedwould shortly have blood.

General The King determined to try once more the experiment of aoMra” dissolution. A new Parliament was summoned to meet at Ox-ford, in March 1681. Since the days of the Plantagenets theHouses had constantly sate at Westminster, except when theplague was raging in the capital: but so extraordinary a con-juncture seemed to require extraordinary precautions. If theParliament were held in its usual place of assembling, theHouse of Commons might declare itself permanent, and mightcall for aid on the magistrates and citizens of London. Thetrainbands might rise to defend Shaftesbury as they had risenforty years before to defend Pym and Hampden. The Guards

in a volume enlilled “ Succinct Genealogies, by Robert Halslead," fob1685. The name of Halslead is fictitious. The real aulbors were the Earl' of Peterborough himself and his chaplain. The book is extremely rare.Only twenty-four copies were printed, two of which are now in the BritishMuseum. Of these two one belonged to George the Fourth, and the otherto Mr. Grenville.