"[1]
From the Painted Chamber the members proceeded to the house. A military
guard was stationed at the door, and a certificate from the council was
required from each individual previously to his admission.[2] The excluded
members complained by letter of this breach of parliamentary privilege. A
strong feeling of disapprobation was manifested in several parts of the
house; the clerk of the commonwealth in Chancery received orders to lay
all the returns on the table; and the council was requested to state
the grounds of this novel and partial proceeding. Fiennes, one of the
commissioners of the great seal, replied, that the duty of inquiry into the
qualifications of the members was, by the "instrument," vested in the lords
of the council, who had discharged that trust according to the best of
their judgment. An animated debate followed that such was the provision in
"the instrument" could not be denied;[3] but that the council
[Footnote 1: Introduction to Burton's Diary, cxlviii-clxxix. Journals,
Sept. 17. Thurloe, v. 427. That the king's army, which Cromwell exaggerated
to the amount of eight thousand men, did not reach to more than one
thousand, is twice asserted by Thurloe himself, 605, 672.]
[Footnote 2: The certificates which had been distributed to the favoured
members were in this form:--"Sept.
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