[273] This apology, as well as another addressed to the Queen, proves clearly that the authority to seize the goods of the Protestants, which the Irish professed to have received from the King himself, was a deliberate invention, as was maintained from the first moment. If not, how came the Catholics not to refer to it? CHAPTER VIII. DAYS OF THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE. Wearied with the labours of the long session, the English Parliament during the King’s absence entered on a recess, which was to last from September 9 to October 28, not however without first appointing a committee, chosen of both Houses, to despatch current business and maintain order. Men breathed again after the tension at which the immense activity of the last ten months had kept their minds: but when they came quietly to look back upon the past, the feeling that was evinced was by no means one of entire satisfaction[274]. There was no blinding themselves to the fact that they had gone far beyond the prospects which had floated before the eyes of the majority at the time of the last elections to Parliament. Instead of a restoration of the rights of Parliament on the ancient footing[275], the constitution was endangered, and all power fallen into the hands of a few men, who had the majority in the divisions. The members who returned to their counties did not give a very satisfactory report of the mode of carrying on the debates, in which they were often prevented from stating their views, so that there was not complete freedom of [A.D. 1641.] speech[276]. Disapproval was especially aroused by a resolution which had been passed in very thin houses during the last days of the session, and clothed with legal force without respect to constitutional forms. It related to spiritual affairs. The Calvinistic communion-tables that had been set aside were again to be restored, the pictures and ceremonial vessels which had been introduced by Laud to be removed, the bowing at the name of the Redeemer discontinued, and Sunday on the other hand to be observed with the Sabbatarian rigour of the Scots. Without having arrived at a complete agreement with the Upper House, which in its weakened condition still offered some resistance, but supported by a minority there which under the circumstances was considerable, the Lower House issued this ordinance, apparently no longer troubling itself about the old forms which required the concurrence of the three components of the legislature. The _ad interim_ commission, of which John Pym was the most active member, held that this declaration should be published everywhere, and carried into effect so far as was possible without a breach of the peace. Lecturers devoted to the Presbyterian system were appointed side by side with the parochial clergy who adhered to Anglicanism. The idea was--and it was at the moment recommended by political considerations--to approach as nearly as was possible without much ado to the Scottish system.