e insult to Parliamentary
authority. Ashburnham, Townshend and Willoughby, Stormont and
Bathurst, Mansfield, Mountfort, and Boston, one after another came in,
dismayed victims of and witnesses to the violence that reigned outside.
Bishop after bishop entered to complain of brutal ill-treatment. But
the Duke of Richmond was so wrapped up in his own speech and its
importance that he could only protest against anything which
interrupted its flow. It is agreeable to find that imbecility and
terror did not rule unchallenged over the Upper House that day. One
account, that of Walpole, who is always malicious, represents Lord
Mansfield as sitting upon the woolsack trembling like an aspen.
Another, more creditable and more credible, declares that Lord
Mansfield showed throughout the utmost composure and presence of mind.
About the gallantry of Lord Townshend there can be no doubt. When he
heard that Lord Boston was in the hands of the mob, he turned to the
younger peers about him, reminded them of their youth, and the fact
that they wore swords, and called upon them to draw with him and fight
their way to the rescue of their brother peer. It was at least a
gallant if a hopeless suggestion. What could the {198} rapiers of a
score of gentlemen avail against the thousands who seethed and raved
outside Westminster Hall? The solemn Duke of Richmond interfered. If
the Lords went forth to face the mob he urged that they should go as a
House and carrying the Mace before them. On this a debate sprang up,
while the storm still raged outside. A Middlesex magistrate, called to
the bar in haste, declared that he could only offer six constables to
meet the difficulty. A proposal to call upon the military power was
fiercely opposed by Lord Shelburne. Under such conditions the Peers
did nothing, and in the end retired, leaving Lord Mansfield alone in
his glory.

[Sidenote: 1780--Lord George Gordon at Westminster]

If things went badly in the Upper House, they went still worse in the
Lower House. While members trying to gain entrance suffered almost as
much ill-treatment as the Peers at the hands of the mob, the Commons'
House was much more closely leaguered than the House of Lords. For it
was in the Commons' House that the petition was to be presented. It
was in the Commons' House that Lord George Gordon, pale, lank-haired,
black-habited, with the blue cockade in his hat, was calling upon the
Commons to receive immediately th