POLITICAL HISTORY 



almost drunk.' While waiting in Westminster Hall they began to 

 quarrel with the soldiers on guard. Whitelocke proceeds : ' They fell 

 a quarrelling with the guards, and asked them why they stood there to 

 guard a company of rogues. Then, words on both sides increasing the 

 Company fell upon the guards and disarmed them, killed one of them 

 and wounded divers. On this alarm more soldiers were sent for from 

 Whitehall and the Meuse, who fell upon the countrymen and killed five 

 or six of them and wounded very many, chasing them up and down 

 through the Hall and the Lanes and Passages thereabouts.' l Rushworth 

 says that they disarmed two or three of the guards and killed one before 

 one of the petitioners was hurt. But this evidence is all on the side of 

 the Parliament. We can well believe that the countrymen were rude 

 and violent, but ' the words on both sides increasing ' imply that the 

 soldiers were not passive either, and an unarmed mob is not likely to 

 have actually assaulted and killed one of an armed guard without more 

 provocation than ill words. The accounts of eye-witnesses show that 

 considerable disorder on one side was put down by military force on the 

 other. The petitioners, waiting in vain for an answer from the Com- 

 mons, became abusive and violent, shouting for 'An old king and a new 

 Parliament,' and wishing to enter the House. A regiment was sent 

 for to clear them out of Westminster Hall, and then resistance being 

 attempted one man was killed on the side of the soldiers, some eight or 

 ten of the countrymen were killed and nearly a hundred wounded. 

 Shots were fired as well as swords and pikes used. 2 Had the violence 

 been done by soldiers of a Stuart sovereign, or of Lord Liverpool's 

 ministry, it would be in all school histories of England. On May 18 

 the Surrey gentlemen published their version of the riot at Guildford. 

 They said that they were joined by many Royalists and that provocation 

 was used to the soldiers which they disliked, as also they did the vio- 

 lence of the soldiers. They do not admit the beginning of violence on 

 their own side. They declared that they would not further exercise 

 their right of petitioning the Parliament, but would unite the county 

 in an engagement to bring in the king again upon conditions. They 

 desired that it should not be in the power of either king or Parliament 

 or army to oppress and ruin the people at their pleasure by committees 

 or taxes or free quarter. They recommended also that a period should 

 be put to the present Parliament. 8 The self-constituted Executive 

 Government in fact, evolved out of a legislature elected eight years 

 before in different circumstances, which had shed many of its members 

 and supplied their place by illegal elections, but which was indissoluble 

 except by its own act, had outlived its popularity. A period was to 

 be put to it a few years hence, but not by the justly discontented nation. 

 The Surrey gentlemen had on May 22 turned to the real masters of the 



1 Whitelocke Memorials ; see also Rushtoorth Collections. 



* See ' A True Relation,' Museum Pamphlets, E. 443, 5, and A New Narrative,' E. 443, 29. 

 Also Clarendon MSS. 2786, 'A Letter of Intelligence,' May 18, 1648. 



3 A Declaration of the County of Surrey, Museum Pamphlets, E. 445, 8. 



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