On these subjects the divisions in the
house were nearly equal, and whenever the opposite party obtained the
majority, it was by the aid of a single proxy, or of the clamours of the
mob. At length a declaration was made by the Commons, that "they held
themselves obliged to preserve the peerage with the rights and privileges
belonging to the House of Peers equally as their own, and would really
perform the same."[b] Relieved from their fears, the Lords yielded to a
power which they knew not how to control; the different bills were passed,
and among them a new self-denying ordinance, by which every member of
either house was discharged from all[c]
[Footnote 1: Journals, Jan. 9, 13, 25, 27; Feb. 11, 15; of Lords, 159, 175,
169, 193, 195, 204. Clarendon, ii. 569.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1645. Feb. 15.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1645. March 25.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1645. April 3.]
civil and military offices, conferred by authority of parliament after the
expiration of forty days.[1]
Hitherto I have endeavoured to preserve unbroken the chain of military and
political events: it is now time to call the attention of the reader to the
ecclesiastical occurrences of the two last years.
I. As religion was acknowledged to be the first of duties, to put down
popery and idolatry, and to purge the church from superstition and
corruption, had always been held out by the parliament as its grand and
most important object.
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