were forty-two persons and six proxys against it, and forty-one persons and fifteen proxys for it.  If it had not gone for it, the Lord Arlington had a power in his pocket from the King to have nulled the proxys, if it had been to the purpose.  It was read the second time yesterday, and, on a long debate whether it should be committed, it went for the Bill by twelve odds, in persons and proxys.  The Duke of York, the bishops, and the rest of the party, have entered their protests, on the first day’s debate, against it.  Is not this fine work?  This Bill must come down to us.  It is my opinion that Lauderdale at one ear talks to the King of Monmouth, and Buckingham at the other of a new Queen.  It is also my opinion that the King was never since his coming in, nay, all things considered, no King since the Conquest, so absolutely powerful at home, as he is at the present; nor any Parliament, or places, so certainly and constantly supplyed with men of the same temper.  In such a conjuncture, dear Will, what probability is there of my doing any thing to the purpose?  The King would needs take the Duke of Albemarle out of his son’s hand to bury him at his own charges.  It is almost three months, and he yet lys in the dark unburyed, and no talk of him.  He left twelve thousand pounds a year, and near two hundred thousand pounds in money.  His wife dyed some twenty days after him; she layed in state, and was buryed, at her son’s expence, in Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel.  And now,

“Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem,
Fortunam ex aliis.

“March 21, 1670.”

This remarkable letter lets us into many secrets.

The Conventicle Bill is “the price of money.”  The king’s interest in the Roos divorce case was believed to be due to his own desire to be quit of a barren and deserted wife.[148:1] Our most religious king had nineteen bastards, but no lawful issue.  It may seem strange that so high a churchman as Bishop Cosin should have taken the view he did, but Cosin had a strong dash of the layman in his constitution, and was always an advocate of divorce, with permission to re-marry, in cases of adultery.

A further and amending Bill for rebuilding the city was before the House—­one of eighty-four clauses, “the longest Bill, perhaps, that ever past in Parliament,” says Marvell; but the Roos Divorce Bill and the Conventicle Bill proved so exciting in the House of Lords that they had little time for anything else.  Union with Scotland, much desired by the king, but regarded with great suspicion by all Parliamentarians, fell flat, though Commissioners were appointed.

The Conventicle Bill passed the Lords, who tagged on to it a proviso Marvell refers to in his next letter, which the Lower House somewhat modified by the omission of certain words.  Lord Roos was allowed to re-marry.  The big London Bill got through.

Another private letter of Marvell’s, of this date, is worth reading:—­