It should further be borne in mind, not only here, but throughout this division of our narrative, indeed onward to the passing of the Act of Uniformity,--that ecclesiastical affairs were in a transition state, that scarcely anything could be regarded as perfectly settled. The High Church party took it for granted, that with the return of the King came the return of the episcopal constitution, with its laws, ceremonies, and usages. They assumed that at once, without any new Parliamentary statute, the stream of affairs would flow back into the old channel--that all which had been done by the Long Parliament, without the sanction of the Crown, ought to be treated as if it had never been done at all. The opposite party also had law on their side; for some valid Acts, affecting the Establishment, remained unrepealed--for example, the Act for divesting Bishops of their temporal powers. Under existing circumstances, much might be said on behalf of other portions of recent legislation, even where the Royal assent had not been obtained. And very few people now will deny that the clergy holding preferment during the Commonwealth had reason and common sense in their favour when they maintained--that, after nearly twenty years of change, after a revolution carried on by a _de facto_ Government which had destroyed old vested rights, and created new ones--things could not be expected to resume their former position as a matter of course; that those in possession, and in possession by sanction of Government, had something to say for themselves, and that the conclusion as to the Church of the future was not foreclosed. And whatever might be said to the contrary, this aspect of the question had been, and still was, tacitly accepted as the true one by Charles and by Clarendon, in their negotiations with the Presbyterians, for they kept them in suspense for more than a year, holding out the idea of a compromise, and did not attempt to carry matters with a high hand until the Presbyterians had been reduced to a condition in which they could be easily crushed. [Sidenote: 1660.]