8. =The Cavalier Parliament, and the Corporation Act. 1661.=--On May 8, =1661=, a new Parliament, sometimes known as the Cavalier Parliament, met. In times of excitement, nations are apt to show favour to the party which has a clear and decided opinion; and, on this occasion, nine-tenths of the new members were Cavaliers. The new Parliament voted that neither House could pretend to the command of the militia, nor could lawfully make war upon the king. Before the end of =1661= it passed the Corporation Act, which was aimed at the Presbyterians as well as at the Independents. All who held office in municipal corporations were to renounce the Covenant, and to take an oath of non-resistance, declaring it to be unlawful to bear arms against the king; and no one in future was to hold municipal office who had not received the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. This Act did more than exclude from corporations those who objected to submit to its injunctions. In many towns the corporations elected the members of the House of Commons, and hence, by excluding non-conformists from corporations in towns, Parliament indirectly excluded them from many seats in the House of Commons. 9. =The Savoy Conference, and the Act of Uniformity. 1661-1662.=--After the dissolution of the Convention Parliament, the old number of bishops was filled up, and, in April =1661=, a conference between some bishops and some Presbyterian clergy was held at the Savoy Palace, and has therefore been known as the Savoy Conference. The two parties differed too much to come to terms, and the whole question of the settlement of the Church was left to the Cavalier Parliament. In =1662= Parliament decided it by passing the Act of Uniformity. Every clergyman and every schoolmaster refusing to express, by August 24, his unfeigned consent to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer, was to be precluded from holding a benefice. On August 24 (St. Bartholomew's day), about 2,000 clergy resigned their cures for conscience' sake, as their opponents had, in the time of Puritan domination, been driven from their cures, rather than take the Covenant.