369 and this being done very few days before the election for the next parliament, when the collonell came to towne and had waved the county, they generally pitch'd upon him for the townc. But then Dr. Plumtre labour'd all he could to get the burgess-ship for himselfc, and to put by the collonelf, with the basest scandalls he and two or three of his associates could rayse. Mr. Arthur Stanhope, in whose house the souldiers were cnter'd to plunder, . being pitcht upon for the other burgesse, and having a greate party in the towne, was dealt with to desert the collonell, and offer'd all Plumtr~'s party ; but on the other side, he labour'd more for the collonell then for himsclfe, and at length, when the election day came, Mr. Stanhope and the coilonell were clearly chosen.' The collonell and Mr. Stanhope went up to the parliament, which began on the 25th day of Aprill, 1660; to whom the king sending a declaration from Breda, which promis'd, or at least intimated, liberty of conscience, remission of all offences, enioyment of liberties and estates; they voted to send commissioners to invite him.' And allmost all the gentry of all parties went, some to fetch him over, some to meete him att the sea-side, some to fetch him into London, into which he enter'd on the 29th day of May, with an universal! ioy and triumph, even to his owne amazement.; who, h Both VVhitelock and Ludlow assure us, that there were great solicitations in all parts to get to be par1iament men; and Rapin sa.ys, that almost all the elections were in favour of the presl>yterians and royali sts, peculiarly the former. This circumstance renders Coli. Hutchinson's popularity and__ personal merit so much the more conspicuous. c That the parliament, and this, as Rapin calls it, a presbyterian parliament, should thus simply and unconditiona1\y have invited the king, has always been matter of astoni shment; the first to find out the error into which their precipitancy had led them, were the royalists, and of them the best, the Earl of SouthB;mpton, who by Burnet, p. 89, is said to have laid the chief blame on Chancellor Hyde. But was it not equally in the power of the parliament after the king's arrival to have imposed any reasonable conditions, at least before they established for him such an income as to render him independent?
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