ary. Somers was present; but his
name is not attached to the protest which was subscribed by his brethren
of the junto. We may therefore not unreasonably infer that, on this as
on many other occasions, that wise and virtuous statesman disapproved of
the violence of his friends.

In rejecting the bill, the Lords had only exercised their indisputable
right. But they immediately proceeded to take a step of which the
legality was not equally clear. Rochester moved that Duncombe should be
set at liberty. The motion was carried; a warrant for the discharge of
the prisoner was sent to the Tower, and was obeyed without hesitation
by Lord Lucas, who was Lieutenant of that fortress. As soon as this was
known, the anger of the Commons broke forth with violence. It was by
their order that the upstart Duncombe had been put in ward. He was their
prisoner; and it was monstrous insolence in the Peers to release him.
The Peers defended what they had done by arguments which must be allowed
to have been ingenious, if not satisfactory. It was quite true that
Duncombe had originally been committed to the Tower by the Commons. But,
it was said, the Commons, by sending a penal bill against him to the
Lords, did, by necessary implication, send him also to the Lords. For
it was plainly impossible for the Lords to pass the bill without hearing
what he had to say against it. The Commons had felt this, and had not
complained when he had, without their consent, been brought from his
place of confinement, and set at the bar of the Peers. From that moment
he was the prisoner of the Peers. He had been taken back from the bar
to the Tower, not by virtue of the Speaker's warrant, of which the force
was spent, but by virtue of their order which had remanded him. They,
therefore, might with perfect propriety discharge him.

Whatever a jurist might have thought of these arguments, they had no
effect on the Commons. Indeed, violent as the spirit of party was in
those times, it was less violent than the spirit of caste. Whenever a
dispute arose between the two Houses, many members of both forgot that
they were Whigs or Tories, and remembered only that they were Patricians
or Plebeians. On this occasion nobody was louder in asserting the
privileges of the representatives of the people in opposition to the
encroachments of the nobility than Harley. Duncombe was again arrested
by the Serjeant at Arms, and remained in confinement till the end of the
session. So