240 7 'erulam MS. ; Relation of Proceedings in Parliament " Waller," the poet ; and one of the most curious mis-readings that I remember a mis-reading that has fixed itself in our history with a sharp personal appli- cation is here brought to light and corrected Dr. Neile, Bishop of Winchester, was an object of frequent attack by the Commons. On the 7th February, Sir Daniel Norton, a gentleman of Hampshire, reported to the House some speeches of this Bishop in his new diocese, which went to show that he set his face against that liberty of preaching against Popery which had been allowed during the reign of James I. Sir llichard Phillips, also, inferred, from the Bishop's conduct at Winchester, that he had had a hand in setting up certain ceremonies in his previous cathedral of Durham. At this period of the debate, Sir .John Eliot is represented as having burst forth with his usual fervour. " In this Laud is contracted all the danger we fear, for he that procured those par- dons may be the author of these new opinions : and I doubt not but that his Majesty, being informed thereof, will leave him to the justice of this House." In both editions of the Parliamentary History, this is distinctly applied to Bishop I^aud, then the occupant of the see of London ; and modern writers, following in the wake of the Parliamentary History, have asserted that Eliot at this time fastened upon Laud by name. The passage could scarcely bear that construc- tion without doing great violence to the continuity of the debate; but Lord Yernlain's MS. sets the whole matter at rest by inserting the word not as "Laud," but " Lord," so that " this Lord" means not Bishop Laud but Bishop Neile, who had been the object of the previous remarks. Hut that which was most memorable in this Session was the sitting of the House of Commons on the 2nd March, 1020, the sitting to which I have before alluded, and which was pronounced by Sir Simonds Dewes as " the most gloomy, sad, and dismal day for Kngland that had happened for 500 years." The incidents of this memorable day will be recollected by every one. Sir John Eliot is said, according to all accounts, to have made an indignant attack upon Ird Weston, the new Lord Treasurer, and to have concluded by moving the adoption of a Remonstrance. The Speaker, Sir John Finch, declined to put the Remonstrance to the vote, and announced that he had received the King's com- mand to adjourn the House until the 10th March. The House paid little attention TO the royal message, contending, first, that it was not the office of the Speaker to deliver any such command; and, secondly, that the power of adjournment belonged to the House, and not to the Crown. Regardless of these arguments, the Speaker prepared to obey the Royal Mandate. He rose and quitted the chair, when two members, Denzil Holies, son of the Earl of Clare, on the one side, and Benjamin
