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While these measures were secretly in agitation, the parliament met, according to adjournment. The king made a short speech, and left the business to be enlarged upon by the keeper. That minister much insisted on the king’s great want of supply; the mighty increase of the naval power of France, now triple to what it was before the last war with Holland; the decay of the English navy; the necessity of fitting out next year a fleet of fifty sail; the obligations which the king lay under by several treaties to exert himself for the common good of Christendom. Among other treaties, he mentioned the triple alliance, and the defensive league with the states.

The artifice succeeded. The house of commons, entirely satisfied with the king’s measures, voted him considerable supplies. A laud tax for a year was imposed of a shilling a pound; two shillings a pound on two thirds of the salaries of offices; fifteen shillings on every hundred pounds of bankers’ money and stock; an additional excise upon beer for six years, and certain impositions upon law proceedings for nine years. The parliament had never before been in a more liberal humor; and never surely was it less merited by the counsels of the king and of his ministers.[*]

* This year, on the 3d of January, died George Monk, duke of
Albemarle, at Newhall, in Essex, after a languishing
illness, and in the sixty-third year of his age. He left a
great estate of fifteen thousand pounds a year in land, and
sixty thousand pounds in money, acquired by the bounty of
the king, and increased by his own frugality in his later
years. Bishop Burnet, who, agreeably to his own factious
spirit, treats this illustrious personage with great
malignity, reproaches him with avarice; but as he appears
not to have been in the least tainted with rapacity, his
frugal conduct may more candidly be imputed to the habits
acquired in early life, while he was possessed of a very
narrow fortune. It is indeed a singular proof of the strange
power of faction, that any malignity should pursue the
memory of a nobleman, the tenor of whose life was so
unexceptionable, and who, by restoring the ancient, and
legal, and free government to three kingdoms plunged in the
most destructive anarchy, may safely be said to be the
subject, in these islands, who, since the beginning of time,
rendered the most durable and most essential services to his
native country. The means also by which he achieved his
great undertakings, were almost entirely unexceptionable.
His temporary dissimulation, being absolutely necessary,
could scarcely be blamable. He had received no trust from
that mongrel, pretended, usurping parliament whom he
dethroned; therefore could betray none; he even refused to
carry his dissimulation so far as to take the oath of
abjuration against the king. I confess, however, that the
Reverend Dr. Douglas has shown me, from the Clarendon
papers, an original letter of his to Sir Arthur Hazelrig,
containing very earnest, and certainly false protestations
of his zeal for a commonwealth. It is to be lamented, that
so worthy a man, and of such plain manners, should ever have
found it necessary to carry his dissimulation to such a
height. His family ended with his son. There was a private
affair, which, during this session, disgusted the house of
commons, and required some pains to accommodate it. The
usual method of those who opposed the court in the money
bills, was, if they failed in the main vote, as to the
extent of the supply, to levy the money upon such funds as
they expected would be unacceptable, or would prove
deficient. It was proposed to lay an imposition upon
playhouses: the courtiers objected, that the players were
the king’s servants, and a part of his pleasure. Sir John
Coventry, a gentleman of the country party, asked, “whether
the king’s pleasure lay among the male or the female
players.” This stroke of satire was aimed at Charles, who,
besides his mistresses of higher quality, entertained at
that time two actresses, Davis and Nell Gwin. The king
received not the raillery with the good humor which might
have been expected. It was said that this being the first
time that respect to majesty had been publicly violated, it
was necessary, by some severe chastisement, to make Coventry
an example to all who might incline to tread in his
footsteps. Sands, Obrian, and some other officers of the
guards, were ordered to waylay him, and to set a mark upon
him. He defended himself with bravery, and after wounding
several of the assailants, was disarmed with some
difficulty. They cut his nose to the bone, in order, as they
said, to teach him what respect he owed to the king. The
commons were inflamed by this indignity offered to one of
their members, on account of words spoken in the house. They
passed a law which made it capital to maim any person; and
they enacted, that those criminals, who had assaulted
Coventry, should be incapable of receiving a pardon from the
crown.

The commons passed another bill, for laying a duty on tobacco, Scotch salt, glasses, and some other commodities. Against this bill the merchants of London appeared by petition before the house of lords. The lords entered into their reasons, and began to make amendments on the bill sent up by the commons. This attempt was highly resented by the lower house as an encroachment on the right, which they pretended to possess alone, of granting money to the crown. Many remonstrances passed between the two houses; and by their altercations the king was obliged to prorogue the parliament; and he thereby lost the money which was intended him.

1671

This is the last time that the peers have revived any pretensions of that nature. Ever since, the privilege of the commons, in all other places except in the house of peers, has passed for uncontroverted.

There was another private affair transacted about this time, by which the king was as much exposed to the imputation of a capricious lenity, as he was here blamed for unnecessary severity. Blood, a disbanded officer of the protector’s, had been engaged in the conspiracy for raising an insurrection in Ireland; and on account of this crime, he himself had been attainted, and some of his accomplices capitally punished. The daring villain meditated revenge upon Ormond, the lord lieutenant. Having by artifice drawn off the duke’s footmen, he attacked his coach in the night time, as it drove along St. James’s Street in London; and he made himself master of his person. He might here have finished the crime, had he not meditated refinements in his vengeance: he was resolved to hang the duke of Tyburn and for that purpose bound him and mounted him on horseback behind one of his companions. They were advanced a good way into the fields, when the duke, making efforts for his liberty, threw himself to the ground, and brought down with him the assassin to whom he was fastened. They were struggling together in the mire, when Ormond’s servants, whom the alarm had reached, came and saved him. Blood and his companions, firing their pistols in a hurry at the duke, rode off, and saved themselves by means of the darkness.

Buckingham was at first, with some appearances of reason, suspected to be the author of this attempt. His profligate character, and his enmity against Ormond, exposed him to that imputation; Ossory soon after came to court, and seeing Buckingham stand by the king, his color rose, and he could not forbear expressing himself to this purpose: “My lord, I know well that you are at the bottom of this late attempt upon my father: but I give you warning; if by any means he come to a violent end, I shall not be at a loss to know the author: I shall consider you as the assassin: I shall treat you as such; and wherever I meet you, I shall pistol you, though you stood behind the king’s chair; and I tell it you in his majesty’s presence, that you may be sure I shall not fail of performance.”[*] If there was here any indecorum, it was easily excused in a generous youth, when his father’s life was exposed to danger.