new Army, and the general is not known; but I believe it will be the Duke of Albemarle, rather than the Duke of York or Prince Rupert, in regard he hath the office by patent, and in regard of his eminent services. The Duke took it very unkind of my Lord Chamberlain that upon information of Prince Rupert's attendants, his Lordship, in the Duke's absence, searched his cellar for gunpowder, it being under the King's seat at the Cockpit, and the Duke with his own hands so cudgelled the informer that he hath almost maimed him; and Prince Rupert assured the Duke that he so resented it, that he was not content to put away his servant, but offered to fight any person that set the design on foot. However, the business is not made up, though my Lord Chamberlain told the Duke he had done over hastily. The Princess Henrietta is sick of the measles on shipboard; but out of danger of wind. Dr. Frasier hath let her blood; I hope with better success than the rest of the royal blood have had."[180] [Sidenote: VENNER'S INSURRECTION.] It may be mentioned, that this insurrection had been hatched at the same place as the former one; and the conspirators are said to have marched first to Rogers' old quarters at St. Thomas the Apostle, to join nine of the party, and thence to Whitecross Street. It came as the expiring flash of a fanatical creed, which had blended itself with Puritanism, greatly to the detriment of the latter; and, dying out rather slowly, it left behind the quiet element of Millenarianism, which, at the present day, we find largely infused into the tenets of a considerable class of Christians. Venner's explosion occurred on the 6th of January; but it is remarkable, that four days before that date, an order was issued from Council, forbidding the meetings of Anabaptists, Quakers, and other sectaries, in large numbers, and at unusual times, and restricting their assembling to their own parishes. Rumours of plots are alleged as reasons for the decision thus adopted upon the 2nd of January; but that decision plainly shows, that ere the insane enthusiasts of Coleman Street had fired a shot, whatever liberty had been conceded at Worcester House was now to suffer great abridgment. Venner's insurrection could not be the cause of curtailing the liberty of the subject at that moment, though it proved a plausible argument for the Proclamation which followed. The Proclamation appeared four days after the riot; yet the terms of the document agree so closely with those employed in the records of Council, as to indicate that, with the exception of a reference to the disturbance of the peace by bloodshed and murder, and some mention of Fifth Monarchy men, little or no alteration could have been made in the phraseology. All meetings, except those held in parochial churches and chapels, or in private houses by the inhabitants, were declared seditious, and were peremptorily forbidden.[181] [Sidenote: 1661.]