SHAFTESBURY. 51 



liy the comniou liangnian. He was one of the commission for the 

 trial of Cliarles I., thougli, through the chance of being suspcmled 

 by tlie House from sitting at the critical moment, he did not vote 

 for the king's execution, nor sign the death -warrant. He was 

 expelled from the House 22 Feb., 1650-1, but did not die till 

 about six years later. Though already dead he was excepted out 

 of the Act of Oblivion, and his estates were forfeited {S. ^' D. N. 

 cj- Q. vol. 1, pp. 53 and 73.) The right of returning members to 

 Parliament became at last a valuable source of revenue to the scot 

 and lot voters, so that after the election of 1774, when Hans 

 Winthrop Mortimer unseated on petition the sitting members. Sir 

 Thos. Rumbold and Francis Sykcs, the committee of the House of 

 Commons ascertained that a person, sworn to be Mr. Alderman 

 Matthews, in the disguise of Punch, through a hole in the door of 

 a small apartment, delivered to the voters parcels consisting of 20 

 guineas. This election gave rise to lengthy but abortive proceed- 

 ings in Parliament, but at the assizes in 1776 Mr. Mortimer 

 recovered £11,000 from Mr. Sykes for 26 acts of bribery. 



But time warns me that I must bring to a close this tedious 

 retrospect. Gone, alas ! is the noljle pile of abbey buildings, Avith 

 the tomb of the martyred king. Gone well nigh all the twelve 

 parochial churches. Gone the Butter Cross, the Fish Cross, the 

 Goldhill Cross, and the Old and New Guildhalls. Gone are the 

 Parliamentary representatives, and with them the parcels of 

 golden guineas so deftly handed to the independent commonalty of 

 the town. Gone is the stately dance of the mayor and burgesses 

 round the springs of Enmore Green. Well may the Shastonians 

 of to-day make the old Park wall their " wailing place " for glories 

 never destined to return. But there is one thing they cannot lose ; 

 for they may still look forth from their castle mounds on the lovely 

 prospect of fertile valley, breezy down, and wooded hill, right worthy 

 of a summer pilgrimage — a prospect which has rejoiced the hearts 

 of kings and queens, and righteous men and women of old — and 

 find in the contemplation of the works of Nature a satisfaction 

 they can no longer derive from the works and art of man. 



