In 1695, the year a speaker of the House of Commons was last ejected from the gilded post, Parliament voted not to renew the Licensing of the Press Act, which had censored "seditious, treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets". The path to a free press was cleared.

Today's MPs -- including Michael Martin, the speaker, who was forced to declare his resignation on May 19th -- might well curse their forebears. A fortnight has elapsed since the Daily Telegraph newspaper began exposing MPs' abuses of their lax expenses regime. But Parliament is as traumatised and discredited as when the first stories of taxpayer-funded dog food, home furnishings and moat-maintenance hit news-stands. Some MPs have returned money or decided not to seek re-election; a minister has quit. More may follow.

But Mr Martin's has been the biggest scalp so far. Long thought too indulgent of Parliament's expenses culture, he reacted to the revelations by berating MPs who upheld publication of the leaked information rather than the culprits it revealed. A tardy apology on May 18th aimed at staving off pressure from fellow MPs that he resign only heightened it. In a stumbling speech Mr Martin pledged nothing bolder than a meeting of party leaders to discuss reform; he failed to say, as expected, that he would step down after the general election that must be held by June of next year. MPs in the chamber, some of them from his own Labour tribe, implored the speaker to quit. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, apparently told him the government would allow a vote of "no confidence" against him otherwise. His battle lost, Mr Martin will vacate the chair on June 21st.

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