While the king shocked in the most open manner all the principles and prejudices of his Protestant subjects, he could not sometimes but be sensible, that he stood in need of their assistance for the execution of his designs. He had himself, by virtue of his prerogative, suspended the penal laws, and dispensed with the test; but he would gladly have obtained the sanction of parliament to these acts of power; and he knew that, without this authority, his edicts alone would never afford a durable security to the Catholics. He had employed, therefore, with the members of parliament many private conferences, which were then called “closetings;” and he used every expedient of reasons, menaces, and promises to break their obstinacy in this particular. Finding all his efforts fruitless, he had dissolved the parliament, and was determined to call a new one, from which he expected more complaisance and submission. By the practice of annulling the charters, the king was become master of all the corporations, and could at pleasure change every where the whole magistracy. The church party, therefore, by whom the crown had been hitherto so remarkably supported, and to whom the king visibly owed his safety from all the efforts of his enemies, was deprived of authority; and the dissenters, those very enemies, were first in London, and afterwards in every other corporation, substituted in their place. Not content with this violent and dangerous innovation, the king appointed certain regulators to examine the qualifications of electors; and directions were given them to exclude all such as adhered to the test and penal statutes.[*] * The elections in some places, particularly in York, were transferred from the people to the magistrates, who, by the new charter, were all named by the crown. Sir John Reresby’s Memoirs, p. 272. This was in reality nothing different from the king’s naming the members. The same act of authority had been employed in all the boroughs of Scotland.