Ordinance brought in by Holles on the 4th of May) being revoked, and matters in that quarter set on their old footing again. The two parties in Parliament seem pretty equal in numbers; the Presbyterian Party, shorn of its Eleven, is cowed down to the due pitch; and there is now prospect of fair treatment for all the Godly Interest, and such a Settlement with his Majesty as may be the best for that. Towards the end of July, however, London City, torn by factions, but Presbyterian by the great majority, rallies again in a very extraordinary way. Take these glimpses from contemporaneous Whitlocke; and rouse them from their fat somnolency a little.
July 26th. Many young men and Apprentices of London came to the House in a most rude and tumultuous manner; and presented some particular Desires. Desires, That the Eleven may come back; that the Presbyterian Militia Ordinance be not revoked,—that the Revocation of it be revoked. Desire, in short, That there be no peace made with Sectaries, but that the London Militia may have a fair chance to fight them!—Drowsy Whitlocke continues; almost as if he were in Paris in the eighteenth century: ‘The Apprentices, and many other rude boys and mean fellows among them, came into the House of Commons; and kept the Door open and their hats on; and called out as they stood, “Vote, Vote!” and in this arrogant posture stood till the votes passed in that way, To repeal the Ordinance for change of the Militia, to’ etc. ‘In the evening about seven o’clock, some of the Common Council came down to the House’—but finding the Parliament and Speaker already had been forced, they, astute Common-Council men, ordered their Apprentices to go home again, the work they had set them upon being now finished.[1] This disastrous scene fell out on Monday 26th July 1647: the Houses, on the morrow morning, without farther sitting, adjourned till Friday next.
On Friday next,———behold, the Two Speakers, ‘with the
- ↑ Whitlocke, p. 263.
