CHARLES II.

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The parliament bad been prorogued, in order c H A p.to give tbe duke leisure to finish bis marriage ; i-xv.but the king’s necessities soon obliged him againto assemble them ; and by some popular acts hepaved the way for the session. Rut all his effortswere in vain. The disgust of the commons wasfixed in foundations too deep to be easily removed.

They began with applications for a general fast,by which they intimated, that the nation was ina very calamitous condition : They addressedagainst the king’s guards, which they representedas dangerous to liberty , and even as illegal,since they never had yet received the sanction ofparliament : They took some steps towards estab-lishing a new and more rigorous test againstpopery : And what chiefly alarmed the court,they made an attack on the members of the cabal,to whose pernicious counsels they imputed all theirpresent grievances. Clifford was dead : Shaftelburyhad made his peace with the country-party, andwas become their leader : Buckingham was endea-vouring to imitate Shaftesbury ; but his intentionswere as yet known to very few. A motion wastherefore made in the house of commons for hisimpeachment : He desired to be heard at the bar;but expressed himself in so confused and ambiguousa manner , as gave little satisfaction. He wasrequired to answer precisely to certain queries,which they proposed to him. These regarded allthe articles of misconduct abovementioned ; andamong the rest , the following query seems re*markable. “ By whose, advice was the armyVol. XI. P