It was manfully, but not wisely, spoken. The whole House was in a
tempest. "Take down his words," "To the bar," "To the Tower,"
resounded from every side. Those who were most lenient proposed
that the offender should be reprimanded: but the ministers
vehemently insisted that he should be sent to prison. The House
might pardon, they said, offences committed against itself, but
had no right to pardon an insult offered to the crown. Coke was
sent to the Tower. The indiscretion of one man had deranged the
whole system of tactics which had been so ably concerted by the
chiefs of the opposition. It was in vain that, at that moment,
Edward Seymour attempted to rally his followers, exhorted them to
fix a day for discussing the King's answer, and expressed his
confidence that the discussion would be conducted with the
respect due from subjects to the sovereign. The members were so
much cowed by the royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the
rudeness of Coke, that it would not have been safe to divide.26

The House adjourned; and the ministers flattered themselves that
the spirit of opposition was quelled. But on the morrow, the
nineteenth of November, new and alarming symptoms appeared. The
time had arrived for taking into consideration the petitions
which had been presented from all parts of England against the
late elections. When, on the first meeting of the Parliament,
Seymour had complained of the force and fraud by which the
government had prevented the sense of constituent bodies from
being fairly taken, he had found no seconder. But many who had
then flinched from his side had subsequently taken heart, and,
with Sir John Lowther, member for Cumberland, at their head, had,
before the recess, suggested that there ought to be an enquiry
into the abuses which had so much excited the public mind. The