ration
should be ready to put in bail, three for each defendant; and such a
manifestation of the feeling of the nobility would have been no slight
blow to the government. It was also known that one of the most opulent
Dissenters of the City had begged that he might have the honour of
giving security for Ken.

The Bishops were now permitted to depart to their own homes. The common
people, who did not understand the nature of the legal proceedings which
had taken place in the King's Bench, and who saw that their favourites
had been brought to Westminster Hall in custody and were suffered to
go away in freedom, imagined that the good cause was prospering. Loud
acclamations were raised. The steeples of the churches sent forth joyous
peals. Sprat was amazed to hear the bells of his own Abbey ringing
merrily. He promptly silenced them: but his interference caused much
angry muttering. The Bishops found it difficult to escape from the
importunate crowd of their wellwishers. Lloyd was detained in Palace
Yard by admirers who struggled to touch his hands and to kiss the skirt
of his robe, till Clarendon, with some difficulty, rescued him and
conveyed him home by a bye path. Cartwright, it is said, was so unwise
as to mingle with the crowd. Some person who saw his episcopal habit
asked and received his blessing. A bystander cried out, "Do you know
who blessed you?" "Surely," said he who had just been honoured by the
benediction, "it was one of the Seven." "No," said the other "it is the
Popish Bishop of Chester." "Popish dog," cried the enraged Protestant;
"take your blessing back again."

Such was the concourse, and such the agitation, that the Dutch
Ambassador was surprised to see the day close without an insurrection.
The King had been by no means at ease. In order that he might be ready
to suppress any disturbance, he had passed the morning in reviewing
several battalions of infantry in Hyde Park. It is, however, by no means
certain that his troops would have stood by him if he had needed their
services. When Sancroft reached Lambeth, in the afternoon, he found the
grenadier guards, who were quartered in that suburb, assembled before
the gate of his palace. They formed in two lines on his right and left,
and asked his benediction as he went through them. He with difficulty
prevented them from lighting a bonfire in honour of his return to his
dwelling. There were, however, many bonfires that evening in the City.
Two Roman Cat