Yet the story, as it has come down to us, is both interesting and instructive.
A bill for restoring the rights of those corporations which had surrendered their charters to the Crown during the last two reigns had been brought into the House of Commons, had been received with general applause by men of all parties, had been read twice, and had been referred to a select committee, of which Somers was chairman.

On the second of January Somers brought up the report.

The attendance of Tories was scanty: for, as no important discussion was expected, many country gentlemen had left town, and were keeping a merry Christmas by the chimney fires of their manor houses.

The muster of zealous Whigs was strong.

As soon as the bill had been reported, Sacheverell, renowned in the stormy parliaments of the reign of Charles the Second as one of the ablest and keenest of the Exclusionists, stood up and moved to add a clause providing that every municipal functionary who had in any manner been a party to the surrendering of the franchises of a borough should be incapable for seven years of holding any office in that borough.
The constitution of almost every corporate town in England had been remodelled during that hot fit of loyalty which followed the detection of the Rye House Plot; and, in almost every corporate town, the voice of the Tories had been for delivering up the charter, and for trusting every thing to the paternal care of the Sovereign.