Many of the corporations imitated the example.

Notwithstanding several marks of displeasure, and even a menacing proclamation from the king, petitions came from all parts, earnestly insisting on a session of parliament.

The danger of Popery, and the terrors of the plot, were never forgotten in any of these addresses.
Tumultuous petitioning was one of the chief artifices by which the malecontents in the last reign had attacked the own: and though the manner of subscribing and delivering petitions was now somewhat regulated by act of parliament, the thing itself still remained; and was an admirable expedient for infesting the court, for spreading discontent, and for uniting the nation in any popular clamor.

As the king found no law by which he could punish those importunate, and, as he deemed them, undutiful solicitations, he was obliged to encounter them by popular applications of a contrary tendency Wherever the church and court party prevailed, addresses were framed, containing expressions of the highest regard to his majesty, the most entire acquiescence in his wisdom, the most dutiful submission to his prerogative, and the deepest abhorrence of those who endeavored to encroach upon it, by prescribing to him any time for assembling the parliament.

Thus the nation came to be distinguished into petitioners and abhorrers.