Six months later the City presented another petition expressing surprise at the prorogation of the House, “whereby the prosecution of the public justice of the kingdom has received an interruption,” and prayed that the House might resume its sessions on the day to which it had been prorogued as being “the only means to quiet the minds and extinguish the fears of your Protestant subjects.” The King’s answer was the dissolution of Parliament, and the announcement that he would call another for March 1 to sit at Oxford. [Illustration: _The Solemn Mock Procession of the POPE, Cardinalls, Jesuits, Fryers, etc: through y^e City of London, November y^e 17^{th} 1679_ From the Crace Collection, British Museum.] All this anxiety meant that the Duke of York was not to succeed if he could be kept out. And Charles, for his part, was not going to take any steps to prevent the succession of his brother. There were, however, other instruments at work to keep up the anti-Papal feeling. Chief among these was the King’s Head Club. The King’s Head Tavern stood over against the Inner Temple. The members of the Club were at first Lord Shaftesbury’s friends, but others, especially young men of good family, were admitted. In order to be known by each other they wore a green ribbon in their hats. Their principal discourse turned upon the perils of Popery. The true purpose of the founders was to foster the anti-Catholic spirit, and to keep it alive and strong enough to prevent the succession of James. Among other things, for instance, they got up processions, in which the Pope was carried in effigy with two or three devils to decorate his chair. In the end Pope, devils, and all were tumbled into the bonfire. The Oxford House of Commons lasted a week only. The City presented another address of remonstrance. For a second time they were told to mind their own business. When a really clever thing is done in the name of the King he always gets the credit of the cleverness. The reduction of the City into a collection of men and women without rights, liberties, or government, other than what the King might grant and allow, was a piece of work which reflects the highest credit on whoever devised it, designed it, or carried it out. The last years of Charles’s reign were occupied in a determined and a successful effort to reduce the Corporation to submission and to make it, so to speak, a pocket borough. In these efforts he completely succeeded. Where the first Charles had failed, the second Charles succeeded. The petitions of the Corporation were counterbalanced by others from the Borough of Southwark, from the Lieutenancy of London, and from 20,000 ’prentices to the opposite effect.