Clarendon proposed a meeting of the two parties upon the 22nd of October. It was a time of great excitement in London, for the execution of the regicides--which will be noticed hereafter--had only just taken place; and, through the fortitude with which some of them had suffered, a reaction of feeling had arisen, and people had become disgusted with such bloody spectacles. His Majesty was present in the Chancellor's mansion, with the Dukes of Albemarle and Ormond, the Earls of Manchester and Anglesea, Lord Holles, and the Bishops of London, Worcester, Salisbury, Durham, Exeter,[138] and Lichfield and Coventry. Presently were ushered into the apartment--fitted up in the style of the seventeenth century, with costly furniture and superb decorations, for Clarendon lived like a prince--the following Presbyterian Divines--Reynolds, Spurstow, Wallis, Manton, Ash, and Baxter. Their Puritan habits contrasted obviously with the costume of the Courtiers and the Bishops, and would be eyed, we imagine, rather oddly by the pages as they announced their entrance. No disputing was to be allowed; the Lord Chancellor was simply to read over his revised Declaration, and as he advanced, the two parties were simply to declare their approbation or their disapproval. The particulars of the interview are too long for insertion; but we may observe, that after many comments upon Clarendon's paper, and after much conversation respecting the subjects of Episcopal power, and of reordination, the Chancellor drew out of his pocket another paper, observing, that the King had been asked by Independents and Anabaptists to grant toleration. He therefore proposed to insert in the document which had been read, a clause to the effect, that persons not members of the endowed Church should be permitted to meet for religious worship, provided they did not disturb the public peace. A pause followed. "The Presbyterians all perceived," says Baxter, "that it would secure the liberty of the Papists." Dr. Wallis whispered to him to be silent, and to leave the Bishops to give an answer. But the eager disputant could not hold his tongue. "I only said this," he reports, "that this reverend brother, Dr. Gunning, even now speaking against sects, had named the Papists and the Socinians. For our parts, we desired not favour to ourselves alone, and rigorous severity we desired against none! As we humbly thanked His Majesty for his indulgence to ourselves, so we distinguish the tolerable parties from the intolerable. For the former, we humbly crave just lenity and favour; but, for the latter, such as the two sorts named before by that reverend brother, for our parts we cannot make their toleration our request. To which His Majesty said, that there were laws enough against the Papists; and I replied, that we understood the question to be, whether those laws should be executed on them, or not. And so His Majesty brake up the meeting of that day."[139] [Sidenote: 1660.]