sband to the duchess of Cleveland,
was acquitted about this time, though accused by Oates and Dangerfield
of an intention to assassinate the king. Sir Thomas Gascoigne, a very
aged gentleman in the north, being accused by two servants, whom he had
dismissed for dishonesty, received a like verdict. These trials were
great blows to the plot, which now began to stagger, in the judgment of
most men, except those who were entirely devoted to the country party.
But in order still to keep alive the zeal against Popery, the earl
of Shaftesbury appeared in Westminster Hall, attended by the earl
of Huntingdon, the lords Russel, Cavendish, Grey, Brandon, Sir Henry
Caverly, Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Sir William Cooper, and other persons of
distinction, and presented to the grand jury of Middlesex reasons for
indicting the duke of York as a Popish recusant. While the jury were
deliberating on this extraordinary presentment, the chief justice sent
for them, and suddenly, even somewhat irregularly, dismissed them.
Shaftesbury, however, obtained the end for which he had undertaken this
bold measure: he showed to all his followers the desperate resolution
which he had embraced, never to admit of any accommodation or
composition with the duke. By such daring conduct he gave them
assurance, that he was fully determined not to desert their cause; and
he engaged them to a like devoted perseverance in all the measures which
he should suggest to them.

As the kingdom was regularly and openly divided into two zealous
parties, it was not difficult for the king to know, that the majority of
the new house of commons was engaged in interests opposite to the court:
but that he might leave no expedient untried, which could compose the
unhappy differences among his subjects, he resolved at last, after a
long interval, to assemble the parliament. In his speech he told
them, that the several prorogations which he had made had been very
advantageous to his neighbors, and very useful to himself: that he had
employed that interval in perfecting with the crown of Spain an alliance
which had often been desired by former parliaments, and which, he
doubted not, would be extremely agreeable to them: that, in order to
give weight to this measure, and render it beneficial to Christendom, it
was necessary to avoid all domestic dissensions, and to unite themselves
firmly in the same views and purposes: that he was determined, that
nothing on his part should be wanting