384

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

chap, blindness of a nation deluded by the specious names of ve-■ 168 ' 8 - ligion and property. None ventured to propose that a nego-tiation should be opened with a prince whom the most rigiddiscipline of adversity seemed only to have made more ob-stinate in wrong. Something was said about inquiring intothe birth of the Prince of Wales: but the Whig peers treatedthe suggestion with disdain. “I did not expect, my Lords,”exclaimed Philip Lord Wharton, an old Roundhead, whohad commanded a regiment against Charles the First at Edge-hill, “I did not expect to hear anybody at this time of daymention the child who was called Prince of Wales; and Ihope that we have now heard the last of him.” After longdiscussion it was resolved that two addresses should be pre-sented to William. One address requested him to take onhimself provisionally the administration of the government;the other recommended that he should, by circular letterssubscribed with his own hand, invite all the constituent bodiesof the kingdom to send up representatives to Westminster.At the same time the Peers took upon themselves to issue anorder banishing all Papists, except a few privileged persons,from London and the vicinity. *

The Lords presented their addresses to thePrince on thefollowing day, without waiting for the issue of the delibera-tions of the commoners whom he had called together. Itseems, indeed, that the hereditary nobles were disposed atthis moment to be punctilious in asserting their dignity, andwere unwilling to recognise a coordinate authority in an as-sembly unknown to the law. They conceived that they werea real House of Lords. The other Chamber they despisedas only a mock House of Commons. William, however,wisely excused himself from coming to any decision till hehad ascertained the sense of the gentlemen who had formerlybeen honoured with the confidence of the counties and townsof England.**

* Halifax’s notes; Lansdowne MS. 255.; Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 24.1688; London Gazette, Dec. 31.

'* Alters, 1682 ‘