conspiracy which had been formed, he said, to cut his throat. Meanwhile
he rapidly organized the Country party in the Parliament and placed
himself openly at its head. An address for the removal of ministers
"popishly affected or otherwise obnoxious or dangerous" was presented on
the reassembling of the Houses in 1674. The Lower House called on the
king to dismiss Lauderdale, Buckingham, and Arlington, and to disband
the troops he had raised since 1664. A bill was brought in to prevent
all Catholics from approaching the Court, in other words for removing
James from the king's Councils. A far more important bill was that of
the Protestant Securities which was pressed by Shaftesbury, Halifax, and
Carlisle, the leaders of the new Opposition in the House of Lords, a
bill which enacted that any prince of the blood should forfeit his right
to the Crown on his marriage with a Catholic.

[Sidenote: Peace with Holland.]

The bill, which was the first sketch of the later Exclusion Bill, failed
to pass, but its failure left the Houses excited and alarmed.
Shaftesbury intrigued busily in the City, corresponded with William of
Orange, and pressed for a war with France which Charles could only avert
by an appeal to Lewis, a subsidy from whom enabled him to prorogue the
Parliament. But Charles saw that the time had come to give way. Spain
was now joining Holland, and a war with Spain would have deprived
English merchants of their most lucrative branch of commerce. The
refusal of supplies by the Commons hastened the king's resolve. "Things
have turned out ill," he said to Temple with a burst of unusual
petulance, "but had I been well served I might have made a good business
of it." His concessions however were as usual complete. He dismissed
Buckingham and Arlington from office. He made peace with the Dutch. But
Charles was never more formidable than in the moment of defeat, and he
had already determined on a new policy by which the efforts of
Shaftesbury and the Country party might be held at bay. Ever since the
opening of his reign he had clung to a system of balance, had pitted
Churchman against Nonconformist and Ashley against Clarendon, partly to
preserve his own independence and partly with a view of winning some
advantage to the Catholics from the political strife. The temper of the
Commons had enabled Clarendon to baffle the king's attempts; and on his
fall Charles felt strong enough to abandon the attempt to preserve a
politi