Note 698 — Chapter XII

Burnet charges these two leaders of opposition with being bribed by the court to draw the house into granting an enormous supply, as the consideration of passing the test act; and see Pepys, Oct. 6, 1666. Sir Robert Howard and Sir Richard Temple were said to have gone over to the court in 1670 through similar inducements. Ralph. Roger North (Examen, p. 456) gives an account of the manner in which men were brought off from the opposition, though it was sometimes advisable to let them nominally continue in it; and mentions Lee, Garraway, and Meres, all very active patriots, if we trust to the parliamentary debates. But, after all, neither Burnet nor Roger North are wholly to be relied on as to particular instances; though the general fact of an extensive corruption be indisputable.