It had originally been intended that the Parliament chosen at the last elections should do nothing more flian formally acknowledge the King; this done, the King was at once to issue writs for a fresh election, as only a Parliament summoned by the King himself could be considered a lawful one.

But it was now urged that a fresh election if held at once would arouse all the evil passions in the country, and would endanger the conciliatory position assumed by the government. One of the first acts of the newly-restored King was to recognise as lawful that Lower House which had been elected without his writs, though it was true that such a measure did not completely satisfy the legal conscience of the nation. The power of dissolution alone he expressly reserved to himself.

More than this was impracticable; inasmuch as the Lower House, without waiting for the King's return, had, in obedience to his proclamation, proceeded at once to settle the points touched upon in the manifesto issued from Breda, and which had been first mooted in London. A proclamation, dated the 8th of May, states that the Commons assembled in Parliament were busied with certain measures of the greatest importance for the country—an act namely for the security of the Protestant religion, an act of amnesty, and lastly, one for the payment of the arrears due to the army and navy.