page_title: Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury
section_title: The Exclusion Bill Parliament, 1679–1680
hierarchical_section_title: Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury / Biography / Restoration politician, 1660–1683 / The Exclusion Crisis and the birth of the Whig Party, 1679–1683 / The Exclusion Bill Parliament, 1679–1680
caption_attribution_description: English: A 19th-century copy of a 17th-century engraved broadside on the Popish Plot showing a Whig mock procession held in London on 17 November 1680 during the height of the Exclusion Crisis. An Exclusion Bill was introduced in the House of Commons with the aim of excluding James, Duke of York, the brother and heir presumptive of Charles II of England from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic. The Tories opposed exclusion while the "Country Party", who were soon to be named the Whigs, supported it. Every November, on the anniversary of Elizabeth I's accession, the Whigs organised huge processions in London in which the Pope was burnt in effigy. The engraving has three lines of effigies of the Pope, cardinals, Jesuits and other Roman Catholics being carried in a mock procession. The top left section shows the effigies being thrown on to a large bonfire outside Temple Bar while a crowd observes the proceedings.
context_page_description: Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC, known as Anthony Ashley Cooper from 1621 to 1630, as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd Baronet from 1630 to 1661, and as The Lord Ashley from 1661 to 1672, was a prominent English politician during the Interregnum and the reign of King Charles II. A founder of the Whig party, he was also the patron of John Locke.
  Cooper was born in 1621. Having lost his parents by the age of eight, he was raised by Edward Tooker and other guardians named in his father's will, before attending Exeter College, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn. He married the daughter of Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry in 1639; that patronage secured his first seat in the Short Parliament. He soon lost a disputed election to the Long Parliament. During the English Civil Wars he fought as a Royalist then as a Parliamentarian from 1644. During the English Interregnum, he served on the English Council of State under Oliver Cromwell, although he opposed Cromwell's attempt to rule without Parliament during the Rule of the Major-Generals. He also opposed the religious extremism of the Fifth Monarchists during the Barebones Parliament.
context_section_description: Elections for a new parliament, which ultimately came to be known as the Exclusion Bill Parliament, were held in summer 1679, but they went badly for the court, so, with parliament scheduled to meet in October 1679, Charles prorogued the parliament until 26 January 1680. Shaftesbury worried that the king might be intending to not meet this new parliament, so he launched a massive petitioning campaign to pressure the king to meet parliament. He wrote to the Duke of Monmouth, telling him that he should return from exile, and on 27 November 1679 Monmouth rode back into London amidst scenes of widespread celebration. On 7 December 1679, a petition signed by Shaftesbury and fifteen other Whig peers calling on Charles to meet parliament, followed up with a 20,000-name petition on 13 January 1680. However, instead of meeting parliament, Charles further prorogued parliament and recalled his brother from Scotland.  Shaftesbury now urged his friends on the privy council to resign and four did so.
  On 24 March 1680, Shaftesbury told the privy council of information he had received that the Irish Catholics were about to launch a rebellion, backed by the French. Several privy councillors, especially Henry Coventry, thought that Shaftesbury was making the entire story up to inflame public opinion, but an investigation was launched. This investigation ultimately resulted in the execution of Oliver Plunkett, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, on trumped-up charges.
  On 26 June 1680, Shaftesbury led a group of fifteen peers and commoners who presented an indictment to the Middlesex grand jury in Westminster Hall, charging the Duke of York with being a popish recusant in violation of the penal laws. Before the grand jury could act, they were dismissed for interfering in matters of state. The next week, Shaftesbury again tried to indict the Duke of York, but again the grand jury was dismissed before it could take any action.
  The parliament finally met on 21 October 1680, and on 23 October, Shaftesbury called for a committee to be set up to investigate the Popish Plot. When the Exclusion Bill again came before the House of Lords, Shaftesbury gave an impassioned pro-Exclusion speech on 15 November. The Lords, however, rejected the Exclusion Bill by a vote of 63–30. The Lords now explored alternative ways of limiting the powers of a Catholic successor, but Shaftesbury argued that the only viable alternative to exclusion was calling on the king to remarry. On 23 December 1680, Shaftesbury gave another fiery pro-Exclusion speech in the Lords, in the course of which he attacked the Duke of York, expressed mistrust of Charles II, and urged the parliament to not approve any taxes until "the King shall satisfie the People, that what we give is not to make us Slaves and Papists." With parliament pursuing the Irish investigation vigorously, and threatening to impeach some of Charles II's judges, Charles prorogued parliament on 10 January 1681, and then dissolved it on 18 January, calling for fresh elections for a new parliament, to meet at Oxford on 21 March 1681. On 25 January 1681, Shaftesbury, Essex, and Salisbury presented the king a petition signed by sixteen peers asking that parliament should be held at Westminster Hall rather than Oxford, but the king remained committed to Oxford.
caption: "The Solemn Mock Procession of the Pope, Cardinals, Jesuits, Friars, Etc. Through the City of London, 17 November 1679."  Throughout the Exclusion Crisis, Shaftesbury's Whig allies in the Green Ribbon Club engaged in anti-Catholic propaganda, such as mock processions, the climax of which involved burning the pope in effigy.
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