that day as a friend by his own choice; and that
his object was to unite his fortune with theirs, and by their assistance to
obtain a full and free parliament for the nation. This speech was received
with the loudest acclamations. The bells were tolled; the soldiers were
feasted; bonfires were lighted; and among the frolics of the night was "the
roasting of the rump," a practical joke which long lived in the traditions
of the city. Scot and Robinson, who had been sent to lead back the general
to Whitehall, slunk away in secrecy, that they might escape the indignation
of the populace.[1]

At Westminster, the parliamentary leaders affected a calmness and
intrepidity which they did not feel. Of the insult offered to their
authority they took no notice; but, as an admonition to Monk, they brought
in a bill[a] to appoint his rival, Fleetwood, commander-in-chief in England
and Scotland. The intervention of the Sunday allowed more sober counsels to
prevail.

[Footnote 1: Price, 765-768. Clar. Pap. iii. 681, 692, 714. Ludlow, 337.
Gumble, 249. Skinner, 237-243. Old Parl. Hist. xxii. 94. Pepys, i. 24,
25. "At Strand-bridge I could at one time tell thirty-one fires; in
King-street, seven or eight, and all along burning, and roasting, and
drinking for rumps; there being rumps tied upon sticks, and carried up and
down. The butchers at the May-pole in the Strand rang a peal with their
knives, when they were going to sacrifice their rump. On Ludgate-hill there
was one turning of the spit that had a rump tied to it, and another basting
of it. Indeed it was past imagination."--Ibid. 28.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 11.]

They solicited the general to return to Whitehall; they completed the bill
for the qualifications of candidates and electors; and, on the day fixed by
the letter of the officers, ordered[a] writs to be issued for the filling
up of the vacancies in the representation. This measure had been forced
upon them; yet they had the ingenuity to make it subservient to their own
interest, by inserting a provision in the act, that no man should choose or
be chosen, who had not already bound himself to support a republican form
of government. But immediately the members excluded in 1648 brought forward
their claim to sit, and Monk assumed the appearance of the most perfect
indifference between the parties. At his invitation, nine of the leaders on
each side argued the question before him and his officers; and the result
was