Note 297 — SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS FIRST PARLIAMENTS.

It is curious to observe that the Westminster elections, in the fourth year of Charles’s reign, were exactly of the same turbulent character as those which we witness in our days. The duke had counted by his interest to bring in Sir Robert Pye. The contest was severe, but accompanied by some of those ludicrous electioneering scenes which still amuse the mob. Whenever Sir Robert Pye’s party cried—“A Pye! a Pye! a Pye!” the adverse party would cry—“A pudding! a pudding! a pudding!” and others—“A lie! a lie! a lie!” This Westminster election of two hundred years ago ended as we have seen some others; they rejected all who had urged the payment of the loans; and, passing by such men as Sir Robert Cotton, and their last representative, they fixed on a brewer and a grocer for the two members for Westminster.