Note 20 — Chapter II · PARLIAMENTARY LIFE UNDER THE STUARTS; PAID MEMBERS.

In reply to the London and Wiltshire petitions against the vexatious prorogations—which Charles justified on the excuse “that the unsettled state of the nation made a longer interval necessary”—the king volunteered an audacious statement which was likely to astonish constitutional minds. He said that “he was the head of the Government, and the only judge of what was fit to be done in such cases, and that he would do that which he thought most for the good of himself and his people, desiring that they would not meddle with a matter that was so essential a part of his prerogative.” This brazen-faced assumption is so coloured by Carolian waggery, that we must fancy the Merry Monarch, if he saw the wit of his speech, making the reply in question with his “tongue in his cheek.”