Similar spectacles were enacted elsewhere; and at Bury St. Edmunds, upon the anniversary of the Restoration--amidst floral decorations, and the adornment of houses with tapestry and pictures, after service at church, Hugh Peters was gibbeted in effigy, with the Solemn League grasped in his hand, and the Directory tucked under his arm. In Southampton, after the firing of culverins, and the marching of scarlet-robed Aldermen, there followed the burning of the Covenant, "in a stately frame, taken from the chancel of an Anabaptist Church."[258] [Sidenote: PROCEEDINGS OF PARLIAMENT.] As a further indication of the temper of the Commons at the moment, it may be stated, that the Speaker rebuked the Mayor of Northampton--summoned to the bar of the House for irreverent carriage in the church, and at the communion table--and that a Bill was read three times for preventing the mischiefs and dangers, which might arise from certain persons called Quakers, and others, "refusing to take lawful oaths."[259] Ere the House had been sitting two months, Bills were introduced of such a character as to prove, that, from the beginning of the Session, measures had been framed for bringing back the Church to the standard of former days, without making any concessions to Nonconformists. The Bills now about to be described, did not appear one after another, as expedients adopted for public safety in consequence of plots, real or suspected; but they constituted parts of one coherent and comprehensive method for re-establishing Episcopacy and crushing Dissent. They must be traced out distinctly. I. A Bill for restoring the prelates to the Upper House was introduced to the Commons by "a gentleman of a Presbyterian family," and it met with little opposition. The ancient constitution of the Upper House could be successfully pleaded in its favour, but it involved the principle of a State Establishment of religion; and would, if discussed by voluntaries on the one hand, and by the advocates of a nationally-established Church on the other, raise the whole question as to the Christian legitimacy and the social justice of such an arrangement. It involved, also, the recognition of Prelacy as the most expedient, if not the most scriptural form of ecclesiastical government, and would thus present a momentous subject of controversy to Presbyterians. But few, if any, decided voluntaries could then be found in the House of Commons; the number of Presbyterians also was small, and their influence manifestly on the decline. [Sidenote: 1661.]