As soon as the House met it commenced an attack upon Papists. The Exclusion Bill was again passed, but was thrown out by the Lords. Thus baulked the Commons revived the impeachment of the Catholic lords. During the trial of Stafford on a charge of a design to murder the king, more than ordinary precautions had to be taken by the mayor to maintain order and prevent too great a crowd assembling at Westminster.(1441) Being condemned to death, the king was ready to spare Stafford the grosser indignities attached to a felon’s execution, but the royal act of clemency was not allowed to pass unchallenged by the sheriffs of London on the ground that if the king could dispense with some part of the execution why not of all?(1442) The House had passed a vote of thanks to the City for its "manifest loyalty to the king" and its care and vigilance for the preservation of his majesty’s person and of the Protestant religion, and had got as far as the second reading of a Bill for repealing the Corporation Act of 1661 when it found itself suddenly prorogued from the 10th January to the 20th.(1443) (M733) During the interval a petition was drawn up by the Common Council (13 Jan.) and presented to the king, in which the petitioners expressed their surprise at the late prorogation "whereby the prosecution of the public justice of the kingdom ... have received an interruption," and after referring to the action taken by parliament for the defence of his majesty’s person and the preservation of the Protestant religion, prayed that the House might be allowed to resume its session on the day to which parliament had been prorogued as being "the only means to quiet the minds and extinguish the fears of your Protestant subjects."(1444) This petition, and more especially that part of it which spoke of the interruption of justice, was highly resented by Charles, and was one of the causes which led to the issue of the writ of _Quo Warranto_ against the city in the following year. In the meanwhile it served only to make the king more determined than ever to dissolve the parliament, which he did by proclamation on the 18th January. A new parliament was summoned for the 21st March; it was not however to sit in London, but in the royalist city of Oxford.(1445) (M734)