The court was fully alive to the danger, as is shown by a letter sent to Lord Yarmouth, lieutenant of the county of Norfolk, advising that none of Shaftesbury's party should be named deputy-lieutenants or colonels (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. 374 b). A letter from himself to Lord Carlisle was circulated before the meeting of parliament, and afterwards printed, in which he mentions that a great office with a strange name is preparing for him, but that he will accept no court office so long as the present parliament shall last. This is confirmed by a letter from William Harbord to Essex (Essex Papers, 23 Jan. 1675), in which he is mentioned as coming to court again.
Upon the assembling of parliament, Danby brought forward his celebrated Test Bill, imposing an oath of non-resistance. Shaftesbury led the opposition for seventeen days, ‘distinguishing himself,’ says Burnet, ‘more in this session than ever he had done before; he spoke once a whole hour to show the inconvenience of condemning all resistance upon any pretence whatever, and the very ill consequence it might be of to lay such an oath on a parliament.’ He had taken the pains to note down a number of reasons against the bill, and spoke to them. He urged, with especial force, that it took away the very object of parliament, which was to make alterations when necessary, and at the same time destroyed the king's supremacy. In committee of the whole house he pertinently asked whether the church was to be regarded as infallible, and what were the bounds of the protestant religion. Upon being gravely informed by the Bishop of Winchester that it was contained in the Thirty-nine Articles, the liturgy, catechism, and homilies, he launched out on the spot into a copious disquisition on all these matters. During one of his speeches he overheard one of the bishops say jeeringly, ‘I wonder when he will have done preaching,’ and at once replied, ‘When I am made a bishop, my lord.’ The bill was carried in the lords, but went no further, as a dispute between the two houses as to the right of the lords to interfere in the commons' impeachments, fomented to the utmost by Shaftesbury and his friends, caused such a dead-lock to business that the king was forced to another prorogation. During the debates Shaftesbury made one famous speech, given almost entire by Ralph (i. 293), which exhibits his clearness of view and power of expression more aptly than anything else of his on record.
As against Danby's scheme, the interests of James, Shaftesbury, and the nonconformists were for the while identical; and Shaftesbury threw overboard his violent anti-catholic principles. On 15 June, during the recess, William Howard informed Essex (Essex Papers) that there were some ‘great designs afoot,’ and that Shaftesbury had been with the duke, along with Penn, Owen, and other leading nonconformists. He says, on 19 June: ‘The treasurer hath lost ground; the duke is trying to bring in Shaftesbury; he refused a conference with the king, and was three hours alone with Shaftesbury.’ On the 26th, Shaftesbury, Cavendish, and Newport were forbid the court. When parliament again met on 13 Oct., Shaftesbury revived and pressed to the uttermost the quarrel between the houses, and carried a motion maintaining the lords' rights (Ranke, iv. 12). Lord Mohun, one of his party, now moved for an address praying for a dissolution, which, through the accession of the Duke of York and the other Roman catholic peers, was defeated by only two votes. Parliament was immediately prorogued, on 22 Nov., for fifteen months. It was no doubt a condition of the new alliance of Shaftesbury and James that nothing should be said about exclusion (Clarke, Mem. of James II, i. 505). During the autumn Shaftesbury had had a violent quarrel with Lord Digby on a Dorsetshire election. Digby, in anger, publicly accused him of being against the king and for a commonwealth, and threatened that he ‘would have his head next parliament.’ Shaftesbury now brought an action against him and obtained 1,000l. damages. Digby's father, Bristol, used language to Shaftesbury in the debate on privileges for which he too was compelled to apologise. In February 1676 Shaftesbury was again advised to leave town, a direct message being sent him from the king, but he once more refused. In April the council of trade and plantations, of which he had been president since April 1672, came to an end. In July he left Exeter House, which he had taken on being made chancellor, and rented Thanet House, Aldersgate Street, instead, at 160l. a year.
Shaftesbury and his friends now looked about for good ground for an attack on Danby, and for getting rid of the present parliament. They asserted the illegality of a prorogation of more than a year, and they circulated pamphlets arguing that this illegality ipso facto dissolved the parliament. On the opening of parliament Buckingham and Shaftesbury at once took up this position. Their motion was rejected, and another at once brought in by the court that Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton should be called to account for their action. They were ordered to acknowledge their error and to beg pardon of the king and the house. Upon their refusal they were brought to the bar as
