the opposition of shaftesbury had rendered the two parliaments summoned in 1679 quite unmanageable by the court. the king determined to hold a new parliament in oxford in 1681, hoping to draw on the city's traditional royalist loyalties. norreys and john fell, who had been the court's managers in the previous two elections, were entrusted with the preparations for holding the new parliament. fell managed to arrange a truce between norreys and lord lovelace, the principal whig electioneer in the borough, while norreys took care of the logistical details of hosting parliament. happily for him, the officer in the royal household responsible for accommodating parliament, the lord great chamberlain, was his eldest half-brother, lord lindsey. the elections to the oxford parliament did not prove any more favorable to the court party than those preceding, but norreys played out his role as lord lieutenant and host, leading a troop of horse to escort the king from the border of oxfordshire to the parliament. norreys also took the somewhat daring step of presenting a petition to the lords for the bail of danby, still languishing in the tower; opinion was divided, and the matter was put aside for a few days on the suggestion of lord halifax. it was not taken up again: a secret treaty with france had relieved the king's need for supply, and a popular reaction against the whigs had begun to grow. charles was disinclined to wrangle with another exclusionist parliament and abruptly dissolved it after a week.