matters than himself, had introduced into the discussion. "We
are," he said, "at this moment out of the beaten path. If
therefore we are determined to move only in that path, we cannot
move at all. A man in a revolution resolving to do nothing which
is not strictly according to established form resembles a man who
has lost himself in the wilderness, and who stands crying 'Where
is the king's highway? I will walk nowhere but on the king's
highway.' In a wilderness a man should take the track which will
carry him home. In a revolution we must have recourse to the
highest law, the safety of the state." Another veteran Roundhead,
Colonel Birch, took the same side, and argued with great force
and keenness from the precedent of 1660. Seymour and his
supporters were beaten in the Committee, and did not venture to
divide the House on the Report. The Bill passed rapidly, and
received the royal assent on the tenth day after the accession of
William and Mary.33

The law which turned the Convention into a Parliament contained a
clause providing that no person should, after the first of March,
sit or vote in either House without taking the oaths to the new
King and Queen. This enactment produced great agitation
throughout society. The adherents of the exiled dynasty hoped and
confidently predicted that the recusants would be numerous. The
minority in both Houses, it was said, would be true to the cause
of hereditary monarchy. There might be here and there a traitor;
but the great body of those who had voted for a Regency would be
firm. Only two Bishops at most would recognise the usurpers.
Seymour would retire from public life rather than abjure his
principles. Grafton had determined to fly to France and to throw
himself at the feet of his uncle. With such rumours as these all