328

HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

CHAP.

IX.

1688 .

Agitation

of

London,

Forged

procla-

mation.

A change of plan was necessary. The child must be broughtback to London, and sent thence to France. An intervalof some days must elapse before this could be done. Duringthat interval the public mind must be amused by the hopeof a Parliament and the semblance of a negotiation. Writswere sent out for the elections. Trumpeters went backwardand forward between the capital and the Dutch headquarters.At. length passes for the King’s Commissioners arrived; andthe three Lords set out on their embassy.

They left the capital in a state of fearful distraction. Thepassions which, during three troubled years, had been gra-dually gathering force, now, emancipated from the restraintof fear, and stimulated by victory and sympathy, showedthemselves without disguise, even in the precincts of the royaldwelling. The grand jury of Middlesex found a bill againstthe Earl of Salisbury for turning Papist. * The Lord Mayorordered the houses of the Roman Catholics of the City to besearched for arms. The mob broke into the house of onerespectable merchant who held the unpopular faith, in orderto ascertain whether he had not run a mine from his cellarsunder the neighbouring parish church, for the purpose ofblowing up parson and congregation.** The hawkers bawledabout the streets a hue and cry after Father Petre, who hadwithdrawn himself, and not before it was time, from hisapartments in the palace.*** Wharton’s celebrated song, withmany additional verses, was chaunted more loudly than everin all the streets of the capital. The very sentinels whoguarded the palace hummed, as they paced their rounds,

“The English confusion to Popery drink,

Lillibullero bullen a la.”

The secret presses of London worked without ceasing. Manypapers daily came into circulation by means which the magis-tracy could not discover, or would not check. One of thesehas been preserved from oblivion by the skilful audacity with

* Lultrell’s Diary. ** Adda, Dec. f,. 1888.

*** The Nuncio says, “Se lo avesse fatto prima di ora, per il Rd ne

sarebhe slato megiio."