At home the public attention was absorbed by a new and most interesting spectacle.  The parliament met on the day to which it had been adjourned, but it was now divided according to the ancient form into two houses.  Sixty-two individuals had been summoned[b] to the upper house, and the writs, as they were copies of those formerly issued by the sovereign, were held to confer in like manner the privileges of an hereditary peerage, subject to certain exceptions specified in the “petition and advice."[2] The Commons, at the call of the usher of the black rod, proceeded to the House of Lords, where they found his highness seated under a canopy of state.  His speech began with the ancient address:  “My lords and gentlemen of the House of Commons.”  It was short, but its brevity was compensated by its piety, and after an exposition of the eighty-fifth psalm, he referred his two houses for other particulars to Fiennes, the lord-keeper, who, in a long and tedious

[Footnote 1:  Thurloe, vi. 231, 287, 426, 512, 538, 542, 580, 637, 665, 676, 731.  Memoirs of James, i. 317-328.]

[Footnote 2:  Thurloe, vi. 752.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1657.  Dec. 5.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1658.  Jan. 20.]

harangue, praised and defended the new institutions.  After the departure of the Commons, the Lords spent their time in inquiries into the privileges of their house.  Cromwell had summoned his two sons, Richard and Henry, seven peers of royal creation, several members of his council, some gentlemen of fortune and family, with a due proportion of lawyers and officers, and a scanty sprinkling of persons known to be disaffected to his government.  Of the ancient peers two only attended, the lords Eure and Falconberg, of whom the latter had recently[a] married Mary, the protector’s daughter; and of the other members, nine were absent through business or disinclination.  As their journals have not been preserved, we have little knowledge of their proceedings.[1]

In the lower house, the interest of the government had declined by the impolitic removal of the leading members to the House of Lords, and by the introduction of those who, having formerly been excluded by order of Cromwell, now took their seats in virtue of the article which reserved to the house the right of inquiry into the qualifications of its members.  The opposition was led by two men of considerable influence and undaunted resolution, Hazlerig and Scot.  Both had been excluded at the first meeting of this parliament, and both remembered the affront.  To remove Hazlerig

[Footnote 1:  Journals, Jan. 7, 20.  Whitelock, 666, 668.  The speech of Fiennes is reported in the Journals, Jan. 25.  See the names and characters of those who attended, in “A Second Narrative of the late Parliament (so called), &c., printed in the fifth year of England’s Slavery under its new Monarchy, 1658.”  “They spent their time in little matters, such as choosing of committees; and among other things, to consider of the privileges and jurisdiction of their house, (good wise souls!) before they knew what their house was, or should be called.”—­Ibid. 7.  The peers who refused to attend, were the earls of Mulgrave, Warwick, and Manchester, the Viscount Say and Sele, and the Lord Wharton.]