About the same time, being told of the reasons alleged by the King of Spain[344] for setting aside his eldest son, two of which were, that the Prince squinted, and did not believe the mysteries of our holy religion; then said Wilkes, “I can never be King of Spain, for I squint, and believe none of those mysteries.”
The rigour of the commitment gave serious alarm; but, the very day on which it happened, Wilkes’s friends applied to the Court of Common Pleas for his habeas corpus, expecting it from Lord Chief Justice Pratt, and scorning or despairing of it from Lord Mansfield.
Lord Temple instantly resorted to the Tower, but was denied admittance to the prisoner; a restraint the ministers found the very next day they must take off. Lord Temple then returned to visit Wilkes, as did the Duke of Grafton and some few others of rank; but, in general, the prisoner’s character was so bad, and his conduct so rash and unguarded, that few who were either decent or cautious cared to be concerned with him.
The habeas corpus being granted, Wilkes was carried to the Court of Common Pleas, May 3rd. He spoke for an hour, said “attempts had been made to corrupt him, now to persecute him; he had been worse treated than any rebel Scot.” The crowd in Westminster-hall gave a great shout; the Chief Justice, with great dignity, reproved them. The judges took time to deliberate. The people were profuse of their acclamations to the sufferer.
On the 5th, he wrote a letter to his daughter (a child whom he had placed in a convent in France for her education), and sent it open to Lord Halifax; it congratulated her on living in a _free_ country. He was the same day turned out of his commission in the militia.
On the 6th, being again conveyed from the Tower to Westminster-hall, Pratt and the other judges of the Common Pleas unanimously discharged him from his confinement; the Chief Justice delivering their opinions, and dismissing him on his parliamentary privilege, “_because_, though privilege of Parliament does not hold against a breach of the peace, it does against what only _tends_ to a breach of the peace. The case of the seven bishops was quoted; the judges Wright, Holloway, and Allibone had been against them. Allibone, said Pratt, was a Papist; Wright and Holloway had been appointed for the occasion; but Powel, an honest man, had declared for the bishops. On the other hand, he quoted a recent case of Lord Tankerville, who having been arrested on a prosecution for bribery in the election for Windsor, the Lords had declared it a breach of privilege”--we shall find how much less tender the Commons were of _their_ privileges.