Their
carriages were stopped and broken; the wheels wrenched off; the glasses
shivered to atoms; the panels beaten in; drivers, footmen, and masters,
pulled from their seats and rolled in the mud. Lords, commoners, and
reverend bishops, with little distinction of person or party, were
kicked and pinched and hustled; passed from hand to hand through various
stages of ill-usage; and sent to their fellow-senators at last with
their clothes hanging in ribands about them, their bagwigs torn off,
themselves speechless and breathless, and their persons covered with the
powder which had been cuffed and beaten out of their hair. One lord was
so long in the hands of the populace, that the Peers as a body resolved
to sally forth and rescue him, and were in the act of doing so, when he
happily appeared among them covered with dirt and bruises, and hardly to
be recognised by those who knew him best. The noise and uproar were on
the increase every moment. The air was filled with execrations, hoots,
and howlings. The mob raged and roared, like a mad monster as it was,
unceasingly, and each new outrage served to swell its fury.
Within doors, matters were even yet more threatening.
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