The Crown saw no disadvantage in having youthful legislators, who could all the more easily be influenced. When Parliament assembled in 1661 and the tender age of many of the members was pointed out to King Charles, he answered that he found no great fault in that, "for he could keep them till they got beards."[84] By the Act of 1695, however, infants were formally excluded from Parliament, but for a long time they continued to sit in the House, though they most probably abstained from voting. [84] Reresby's "Memoirs," p. 51. Extreme youth was not considered a bar to parliamentary success in days when it was possible for a politician to become Prime Minister, as Pitt did, at the age of twenty-five, though that statesman's father found it necessary on one occasion to defend himself against the charge of immaturity.[85] Both Fox and Philip Stanhope (afterwards Lord Chesterfield) delivered their maiden speeches a month or so before they came of age,[86] and Lord John Russell was returned to Parliament when he was still a minor. [85] "Sir," he said in debate, "the atrocious crime of being a young man, which the hon. gentleman (Horace Walpole) has with such decency and spirit charged against me, I shall neither attempt to palliate or deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience." [86] Chesterfield's "Letters," vol. ii. p. 339. In order to escape the fine of £500 Chesterfield retired from political life for a short time. As the years advanced the House of Commons became more and more particular in this respect, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century an eye-witness was struck by the large proportion of bald-headed men--nearly a third of the whole number--in the Lower Chamber.[87] To-day no one who has not reached the mature age of twenty-one can stand for Parliament, much less sit upon the sacred green benches. [87] Grant's "Recollections," p. 62.