Sir John Coventry had animadverted upon some of the King’s immoralities. The King (Charles II.) declared that if he did not punish this it would grow a fashion to talk so, and sent some of his guards to watch in the streets where Sir John lodged, and to leave some mark upon his person which should teach him not to talk at that rate for the future. The rest I give in the quaint words of Bishop Burnet:[16] “Sands and Obrian and some others went thither, and as Coventry was going home they drew about him. He stood up to the wall, and snatched the flambeau out of his servant’s hand, and with that in the one hand and his sword in the other he defended himself so well that he got more credit by it than by all the actions of his life. He wounded some of them, but they cut his nose to the bone, to teach him to remember what respect he owed to the King; and so they left him, and went back to the Duke of Monmouth’s, where Obrian’s arm was dressed. That matter was executed by orders from the Duke of Monmouth, for which he was severely censured, because he lived there in professions of friendship with Coventry. Coventry had his nose so well needled up that the scar was scarce ever to be discovered. This put the House of Commons in a furious uproar; they passed a bill of banishment against the actors of it, and put a clause in it that it should not be in the King’s power to pardon them.” De Lolme quotes this as an instance of the habit of the English people of falling back upon their ancient constitutional rights, remarking that in this instance, although the nose in question was so skilfully needled up as to be as good as ever, still it was deemed by Parliament that the clause “nor in any ways destroyed” of Magna Charta had been violated by this assault, and adds that the whole of Parliament was thrown into such a passion of fury on the occasion that nothing would serve them but the passing of the Act which stands upon the statute-books till this day as the Coventry Act. If I dared to bring before my readers the comparison of this slight personal insult offered to one man on one occasion, with those day by day perpetrated under the Acts which we oppose, whose effects are to degrade and harden, the nation would not rest content with repeal, but would require an Act to be framed which would render such outrages impossible in the future.[17]