The princess of Orange, having come to England in order to partake of the joy attending the restoration of her family, with whom she lived in great friendship, soon after sickened and died. The queen mother paid a visit to her son; and obtained his consent to the marriage of the princess Henrietta with the duke of Orleans, brother to the French king.
After a recess of near two months, the parliament met, and proceeded in the great work of the national settlement. They established the post-office, wine-licenses, and some articles of the revenue. They granted more assessments, and some arrears for paying and disbanding the army. Business, being carried on with great unanimity, was soon despatched; and after they had sitten near two months, the king, in a speech full of the most gracious expressions, thought proper to dissolve them.
This house of commons had been chosen during the reign of the old parliamentary party; and though many royalists had crept in amongst them, yet did it chiefly consist of Presbyterians, who had not yet entirely laid aside their old jealousies and principles. Lenthal, a member, having said, that those who first took arms against the king were as guilty as those who afterwards brought him to the scaffold, was severely reprimanded by order of the house; and the most violent efforts of the long parliament, to secure the constitution, and bring delinquents to justice, were in effect vindicated and applauded.[*] The claim of the two houses to the militia, the first ground of the quarrel, however exorbitant a usurpation, was never expressly resigned by this parliament. They made all grants of money with a very sparing hand. Great arrears being due, by the protectors, to the fleet, the army, the navy office, and every branch of service, this whole debt they threw upon the crown, without establishing funds sufficient for its payment. Yet, notwithstanding this jealous care expressed by the parliament, there prevails a story, that Popham, having sounded the disposition of the members, undertook to the earl of Southampton to procure, during the king's life, a grant of two millions a year, land tax; a sum which, added to the customs and excise, would forever have rendered this prince independent of his people.