WILLIAM AND MARY.

29

after his Restoration, continued to sit and to legislate, hadsettled the revenue, had passed an Act of amnesty, hadabolished the feudal tenures. These proceedings had beensanctioned by authority of which no party in the state couldspeak without reverence. Hale had borne a considerable sharein them, and had always maintained that they W'ere strictlylegal. Clarendon, little asliew r as inclined to favour any doc-trine derogatory to the rights of the Crown, or to the dignity ofthat seal of which he was keeper, had declared that, since Godhad, at a most critical conjuncture, given the nation a goodParliament, it would be the height of folly to look for technicalflaws in the instrument by which that Parliament was calledtogether. Would it be pretended by any Tory that the Conven-tion of 16G0 had a more respectable origin than the Conventionof 1689? Was not a letter written by the first Prince of theBlood, at the request of the whole peerage, and of hundreds ofgentlemen who had represented counties and towns, at least asgood a warrant as a vote of the Rump?

Weaker reasons than these would have satisfied the Whigswho formed the majority of the Privy Council. The King there-fore, on the fifth day after he had been proclaimed, went withroyal state to the House of Lords, and took his seat on thethrone. The Commons wore called in; and he, with manygracious expressions, reminded his hearers of the periloussituation of the country, and exhorted them to take such stepsas might prevent unnecessary delay in the transaction of publicbusiness. His speech was received by the gentlemen whocrowded the bar with the deep hum by which our ancestors werewont to indicate approbation, and which was often heard inplaces more sacred than the Chamber of the Peers.* As soonas he had retired, a Bill declaring the Convention a Parliament

* Van Cittcrs, 168§.

CHAP.

XI.

Ui89.