21. =The Third Short Parliament. 1681.=--Charles summoned a new Parliament to meet at Oxford, where it would not be exposed to any violent interruption by Shaftesbury's 'brisk boys'--as his noisy London supporters were called--who might, it was feared, repeat the exploits of the City mob in =1641= (see p. 535). The new House of Commons was again predominantly Whig, and it was thought by the Whigs that Oxford had been selected as the place of meeting because the University was eminently Tory, with the deliberate intention of overpowering them by force. Their alarm increased when they learned that the king was bringing his guards with him. Accordingly the Whigs armed themselves and their servants in self-defence, and, in this guise, rode into Oxford. Parliament was opened on March 21, =1681=, and Charles then offered to assent to any scheme for stripping his brother of royal authority, if only he were recognised as king. Shaftesbury replied that the only way of ending the dispute was to declare Monmouth heir to the Crown. As the Commons supported Shaftesbury, Charles, on March 28, dissolved his third Short Parliament. So much was he afraid that the Whig members and their servants might lay violent hands on him, that he drove in one coach to Christchurch Hall, where the House of Lords was sitting, and sent his robes by another, in order that it might not be guessed that a dissolution was intended. He soon found that he could now count on popular support in almost every part of England. The mass of people judge more by what they see than by what they hear. The pistols in the hands of the Whig members when they rode into Oxford had driven into men's heads the belief that they intended to gain their ends by civil war, and, much as the nation disliked the idea of having a 'Popish' king, it disliked the idea of civil war still more, and rallied round the king. CHAPTER XL THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES II. 1681-1685 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles II., 1660-1685 Tory Reaction 1681 Flight of Shaftesbury 1682 Forfeiture of the Charter of the City of London 1683 The Rye House Plot 1683 Executions of Russell and Sidney 1683 Death of Charles II. Feb. 6, 1685