This ordinance was proclaimed at Edinburgh on the 4th of May 1654. The town-cross, at which the ceremony took place, was surrounded by troops under the command of Monk. An immense crowd of the townsfolk assembled to witness the proceedings. The Lord Provost and the Magistrates, clad in their scarlet robes, were in attendance. Henry Whalley, Judge Advocate to the English army, read the proclamation; and at the conclusion of the ceremony, Monk and his friends were entertained at a sumptuous banquet in the Parliament House, where the Magistrates stood and served them. Later in the evening there was a display of fireworks at the town-cross. The Union having been thus proclaimed, the Council of State at Whitehall proceeded to arrange the distribution of seats in Scotland.[76] Of the thirty seats, twenty were allotted to the counties, and ten to the burghs. The more populous counties each returned a member. The rest were divided into groups. Of the burghs, Edinburgh alone returned two members; but all the other towns were grouped into districts. When the Protector’s first Parliament met, in July 1654, twenty-one members from Scotland attended. Of these, both the members for Edinburgh, and several others, were Englishmen; and while the Union lasted, the members from Scotland were either quiet and peaceful Scotsmen, ready to support the Protector’s measures, or English officials.[77] The Council in Scotland managed the elections there. The full number of thirty members was returned to the Parliament of 1656; but many of them were Englishmen. Argyll opposed the Council, and endeavoured to secure the return of Scotsmen only, but in vain. He failed to obtain a seat himself until Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1658, when thirteen county and eight burgh members seem to have attended. Argyll then represented Aberdeenshire in the House of Commons; but the members for Perthshire, Inverness-shire, Linlithgow, Stirlingshire, Clackmannan, Dumbartonshire, Argyllshire, Bute, and Midlothian were all Englishmen; and a majority of the burgh members came from Westminster or the Inns of Court.[78]