while the
unusual number of members returned to the Lower House--four hundred
and thirty, it will be seen, voted on one great occasion--shows that
the issue of writs had been on the widest scale. On the whole, it was,
perhaps, the fairest election which had taken place for many years. In
the House of Lords the ejection of the Reforming bishops and the
restoration of their opponents--the death, imprisonment, or disgrace
of three noblemen on the Reforming side, and the return to public life
of the peers who, in the late reign, had habitually absented
themselves, had restored a conservative majority. How the
representatives of the people would conduct themselves was the anxious
and all-agitating question. The queen, however, could console herself
with knowing that Protestantism, as a system of belief, had made its
way chiefly among the young; the votes were with the middle-aged and
the old.

The session opened on the 5th of October with the ancient {p.067}
form, so long omitted, of the mass of the Holy Ghost. Two Protestant
bishops, Taylor of Lincoln and Harley of Hereford, who had been left
as yet undisturbed in their sees, on the service commencing, rose and
went out; they were not allowed to return. Two prebends, Alexander
Nowel and Doctor Tregonwell had been returned to the Lower House;
Nowel as a member of Convocation was declared ineligible;[152]
Tregonwell, being a layman, was on consideration allowed to retain his
seat. These were the only ejections which can be specifically traced,
and the silence of those who were interested in making the worst of
Mary's conduct, may be taken to prove that they did not know of any
more.[153] The Houses, purged of these elements, then settled to their
work; and, plunging at once into the great question of the time, the
Commons came to an instant understanding that the lay owners of church
lands should not be disturbed in their tenures under any pretext
whatsoever.

[Footnote 152: "Friday, October 13, it was declared
by the commissioners that Alex. Nowel, being
prebendary in Westminster, and thereby having a
voice in the Convocation House, cannot be a member
of this House, and so agreed by the
House."--_Commons Journal_, 1 Mary.]

[Footnote 153: Burnet and other Protestant writers
are loud-voiced with eloquent generalities on t