bloody machinations of the papists and their adherents, "of whom too
many had crept into his majesty's guards." The aid of ballads and
libellous prints was called in, to represent this alteration of the
usual place of meeting as a manoeuvre to throw the parliament, its
members, and its votes, at the feet of an arbitrary monarch[1]. It is
probable that this meeting, which rather resembled a Polish diet than
a British parliament, would not have separated without some signal,
and perhaps bloody catastrophe, if the political art of Halifax, who
was at the head of the small moderate party, called Trimmers, joined
to the reluctance of either faction to commence hostilities against an
enemy as fully prepared as themselves, had not averted so eminent a
crisis. In all particulars, excepting the actual assassination, the
parliament of Oxford resembled the assembly of the States General at
Blois. The general character of the Duke of Monmouth certainly had not
many points of similarity to that of the Duke of Guise; but in one
particular incident his conduct had been formed on that model, and it
is an incident which makes a considerable figure in the tragedy. In
September 1679, after the king's illness, Monmouth was disgraced, and
obliged to leave the kingdom. He retired to Holland, where he resided
until the intrigues of Shaftesbury assured him the support of a party
so strongly popular, that he might return, in open defiance of the
court. In the November following, he conceived his presence necessary
to animate his partizans; and, without the king's permission for his
return, he embarked at the Brill, and landed at London on the 27th, at
midnight, where the tumultuous rejoicings of the popular party more
than compensated for the obscurity of his departure[2]. This bold step
was, in all its circumstances, very similar to the return of the Duke
of Guise from his government to Paris, against the express command of
Henry the second, together with his reception by the populace, whom he
came prepared to head in insurrection. Above all, the bill of