r.

The continuance of the session in London was at that time rendered
impossible by the pestilential sickness already referred to, which
every day increased in severity. Buckingham, who although pliant and
adroit yet had no regard whatever for others, wished to keep
Parliament sitting until it had made satisfactory grants. While the
members, and even the Privy Council, wished for a prorogation, he
urged with success that the sitting should only be transferred to
Oxford. Thither the two Houses very unwillingly went, for there also
symptoms of the plague were already showing themselves; and each
member would have preferred to be at home with his family. And when
Buckingham came before them at Oxford with his proposal for a further
grant, the ill-humour of the assembly openly broke out. He was
reproached with the illegality of his conduct in asking for a grant of
subsidies more than once in a session; the members said that if this
was the object of their meeting they might well have been at
home.[453] But they were not content with rejecting the proposal: they
said that if they must remain together, they would, according to
former precedent, bring under debate the prevailing abuses and their
removal.

Buckingham had been warned that by now changing his demeanour he would
run the risk of forfeiting those sympathies of Parliament, which he
had won by his Protestant attitude. In the very first session at
Oxford an event took place which set religious passions in agitation.

Before the departure of the Parliament from London Lord Keeper
Williams had promised in the King's name that the laws against
Catholic priests should be observed. Immediately after the Speaker had
taken his seat at Oxford, a complaint was made that an order for the
pardon of six priests had been since issued. Williams had had no share
in it; he had refused to seal it. It had been necessary to complete it
in the presence of the King, who was induced at the urgent request of
Buckingham to give his assent in pursuance of the conditions of the
agreement executed with France. This conduct however, the failure to
execute laws that had been ratified, especially after a renewed
promise to the contrary, appeared to the Parliament an attack upon its
rights and upon the constitution of the country. The ill-feeling was
directed against Buckingham, whose exceptional position was now the
general object of public and private hatred.

This was a time in which the po