Parliament assembled on the 8th of May.[194] The Upper House presented more of its ancient appearance than recently it had done; for although the Bishops were not yet restored, more than a hundred Peers took their seats--a striking contrast to the opening of the Convention, when only five Earls, one Viscount, and four Barons mustered in the Chamber. His Majesty, crowned and wearing his regal robes, ascended the throne, attended on each side by Officers of State, including a few who had favoured Presbyterianism. The Commons took their places below the bar. The King kept silence on Church matters, unless he may have referred to the Breda Declaration, when saying that he valued himself much upon keeping his word, and upon making good whatever he had promised to his subjects. The Lord Chancellor, after an allusion to the constitution and disorders of the State--its stomach and appetite, its humour and fevers--indignantly inquired, "What good Christian can think without horror of these ministers of the Gospel, who by their function should be the messengers of peace, and are in their practice the only trumpets of war, and incendiaries towards rebellion?" Such preaching he pronounced to be a sin against the Holy Ghost. [Sidenote: COMMISSION FOR CONFERENCE.] Sir Edward Turner, a thorough Royalist, was elected Speaker; and, when presented to the King, he delivered one of those tiresome speeches which were so characteristic of the age.[195] The House ordered that the Communion of the Lord's Supper should, on Sunday, the 26th of January, be celebrated at St. Margaret's Church, according to the Liturgy of the Church of England; and that no one who did not partake of this sacrament should be allowed to enter the House.[196] We must now leave the transactions of Parliament for awhile, that we may attend to the proceedings of two ecclesiastical bodies, contemporaneously engaged in discussing affairs over which Parliament exercised supreme control. [Sidenote: 1661.]