council. It was known that on coming up from the country he had been received with great enthusiasm by the populace (Ranke, iv. 94), and that he had on 5 Oct. called together his friends in the council to induce them to remonstrate against the recall of James. The Meal Tub plot, in which it was asserted that Shaftesbury was implicated, was now discovered. He was fully persuaded that the object of Dangerfield was to assassinate him, and Dangerfield stated this himself (Christie, ii. 349). Mrs. Cellier is also said to have tried to do the same, and a Portuguese Jew named Faria afterwards declared (Lords' Journals, 28 Oct. 1680) that he had been commissioned to do this as early as 1675. Within a month from Shaftesbury's dismissal the first commissionership of the treasury was, on Essex's resignation, offered him. He insisted on the divorce of the queen and the dismissal of James as the conditions of taking office. They were of course refused, and Shaftesbury then, in spite of another attempt, remained in opposition. North notices the growth of clubs as a marked feature of the time, and mentions Shaftesbury as the great prompter-general, especially of the Green Ribbon Club.
Near the end of November Shaftesbury is said to have taken a distinctly treasonable step. Monmouth returned to London without Charles's permission, and, according to Barillon, was concealed for three days in Shaftesbury's house. He took, too, every step to agitate for the reassembling of parliament on 26 Jan. 1680, which it was feared Charles meant to postpone. He was one of the ten peers who presented a petition in this sense, and he probably set on foot the general petitioning which now took place, and which Charles met in December by proclaiming it as illegal, and by immediately proroguing parliament from time to time until 21 Oct. 1680. On 28 Jan. the king declared his intention of sending for James. Shaftesbury thereupon urged his friends in the council by letter to resign, in order that they might justify themselves before the country, hinted at probable attempts to alter religion and government with the help of the French, and besought them, after taking notes of its contents, to burn the letter (Christie, ii. 357). The next day they followed his advice, Essex and Salisbury alone remaining. In March came news of a catholic plot in Ireland. Shaftesbury at once demanded from the council the appointment of a secret committee. His informants, Irishmen of the lowest character, declared that aid had been asked for from Louis, and that Ormonde and Archbishop Plunket were in the plot. The information was undoubtedly false, and Shaftesbury could not have been its dupe. The court laughed at it; but London, where Shaftesbury's influence was very powerful, sustained him in the agitation. The judicial murder of Plunket a year later must be laid to his door.
A second illness of the king in May put Monmouth's adherents on the alert. Meetings were held at Shaftesbury's house to consider the steps to be taken in case of Charles's death. Lord Grey, in the ‘Secret History of the Rye House Plot’ (pp. 3–5), states that a rising in the city was determined on, and steps taken in preparation. On 26 June Shaftesbury, with other leaders of the opposition, went to Westminster Hall, and indicted the Duke of York and the Duchess of Portsmouth as popish recusants. A pretence was, however, found for discharging the jury before the bills were presented. Barillon asserts that Shaftesbury's language was most violent, if not actually treasonable, and he continued to keep the city at fever point. There were now two parties at the court, that of Sunderland, Godolphin, and the duchess, who, with the Spanish ambassador, wished to conciliate Shaftesbury (Clarke, i. 599), and that of Lawrence Hyde and the Duke of York. Towards the end of September Sunderland was in active negotiation with Shaftesbury and Monmouth for satisfying parliament, and Charles was induced to send James to Scotland. In the middle of September Shaftesbury was ill of fever, and his popularity was shown by the crowds who came to inquire. By 9 Oct., however, he had recovered.
On 21 Oct. parliament met; by 15 Nov. a bill for excluding James from the throne had passed the commons and had reached the lords. There, through the ability of Halifax, ‘who was much too hard for Shaftesbury, who was never so outdone before’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. 18 Nov.), the second reading was rejected by 63 to 30. Shaftesbury of course joined in the protest against the rejection. On the 16th he opened a debate as to the effectual securing of the protestant religion. He declared that as exclusion had been rejected the divorce of the king was the only expedient. Clarendon, he said, had purposely married Charles to a woman incapable of bearing children. He did not, however, persevere in his proposal. In the debate on the king's speech of 15 Dec. he delivered another violent speech (Christie, ii. app. vi.), which was immediately published, but which was of such a character that after Christmas it was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. The violent course adopted by the whigs defeated itself. All legislation and all supply were stopped. Charles prorogued parliament on
