It made a great noise directly,and the Merry Monarch-strongly suspected of having goaded the Scottish people on,that he might have an excuse for a greater army than the Parliament were willing to give him-sent down his son,the Duke of Monmouth,as commander-in-chief,with instructions to attack the Scottish rebels,or Whigs as they were called,whenever he came up with them.Marching with ten thousand men from Edinburgh,he found them,in number four or five thousand,drawn up at Bothwell Bridge,by the Clyde.They were soon dispersed;and Monmouth showed a more humane character towards them,than he had shown towards that Member of Parliament whose nose he had caused to be slit with a penknife.But the Duke of Lauderdale was their bitter foe,and sent Claverhouse to finish them.
As the Duke of York became more and more unpopular,the Duke of Monmouth became more and more popular.It would have been decent in the latter not to have voted in favour of the renewed bill for the exclusion of James from the throne;but he did so,much to the King's amusement,who used to sit in the House of Lords by the fire,hearing the debates,which he said were as good as a play.
The House of Commons passed the bill by a large majority,and it was carried up to the House of Lords by LORD RUSSELL,one of the best of the leaders on the Protestant side.It was rejected there,chiefly because the bishops helped the King to get rid of it;and the fear of Catholic plots revived again.There had been another got up,by a fellow out of Newgate,named DANGERFIELD,which is more famous than it deserves to be,under the name of the MEAL-TUB PLOT.This jail-bird having been got out of Newgate by a MRS.
CELLIER,a Catholic nurse,had turned Catholic himself,and pretended that he knew of a plot among the Presbyterians against the King's life.This was very pleasant to the Duke of York,who hated the Presbyterians,who returned the compliment.He gave Dangerfield twenty guineas,and sent him to the King his brother.
But Dangerfield,breaking down altogether in his charge,and being sent back to Newgate,almost astonished the Duke out of his five senses by suddenly swearing that the Catholic nurse had put that false design into his head,and that what he really knew about,was,a Catholic plot against the King;the evidence of which would be found in some papers,concealed in a meal-tub in Mrs.Cellier's house.There they were,of course-for he had put them there himself-and so the tub gave the name to the plot.But,the nurse was acquitted on her trial,and it came to nothing.
Lord Ashley,of the Cabal,was now Lord Shaftesbury,and was strong against the succession of the Duke of York.The House of Commons,aggravated to the utmost extent,as we may well suppose,by suspicions of the King's conspiracy with the King of France,made a desperate point of the exclusion,still,and were bitter against the Catholics generally.So unjustly bitter were they,I grieve to say,that they impeached the venerable Lord Stafford,a Catholic nobleman seventy years old,of a design to kill the King.The witnesses were that atrocious Oates and two other birds of the same feather.He was found guilty,on evidence quite as foolish as it was false,and was beheaded on Tower Hill.The people were opposed to him when he first appeared upon the scaffold;but,when he had addressed them and shown them how innocent he was and how wickedly he was sent there,their better nature was aroused,and they said,'We believe you,my Lord.God bless you,my Lord!'
The House of Commons refused to let the King have any money until he should consent to the Exclusion Bill;but,as he could get it and did get it from his master the King of France,he could afford to hold them very cheap.He called a Parliament at Oxford,to which he went down with a great show of being armed and protected as if he were in danger of his life,and to which the opposition members also went armed and protected,alleging that they were in fear of the Papists,who were numerous among the King's guards.
However,they went on with the Exclusion Bill,and were so earnest upon it that they would have carried it again,if the King had not popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair,bundled himself into it along with them,hurried down to the chamber where the House of Lords met,and dissolved the Parliament.After which he scampered home,and the members of Parliament scampered home too,as fast as their legs could carry them.
