The Lords then went into committee on the Commons' resolution, and at once proceeded, as was natural enough, to dispute the clause in its preamble which referred to the original contract between the King and the people. No Tory, of course, could really have subscribed to the doctrine implied in these words; but it was doubtless as hard in those days as in these to interest an assembly of English politicians in affirmations of abstract political principle, and some Tories probably thought it not worth while to multiply causes of dissent with the Lower House by attacking a purely academic recital of their resolution. Anyhow, the numbers of the minority slightly fell off, only forty-six Peers objecting to the phrase, while fifty-three voted that it should stand. The word "deserted" was then substituted without a division for the word "abdicated," and, the hour being late, the Lords adjourned. The real battle, of course, was now at hand, and to anyone who assents to the foregoing criticisms it will be evident that it was far less of a conflict on a point of constitutional principle, and far more of a struggle between the parties of two distinct--one cannot call them rival--claimants to the throne than high-flying Whig writers are accustomed to represent it. It would, of course, be too much to say that the Whigs insisted on declaring the vacancy of the throne, _only_ because they wished to place William on it, and that the Tories contended for a demise of the crown, _only_ because they wished an English princess to succeed to the throne rather than a Dutch prince. Still, it is pretty certain that, but for this conflict of preferences, the two political parties, who had made so little difficulty of agreeing in the declaration that James had ceased to reign, would never have found it so hard to concur in its almost necessary sequence that the throne was vacant. The debate on the last clause of the resolution began, and it soon became apparent that the Whigs were outnumbered. The forty-nine peers who had supported the proposal of a regency--which implied that the royal title was still in James--were bound, of course, to oppose the proposition that the throne was vacant; and they were reenforced by several peers who held that that title had already devolved upon Mary. An attempt to compromise the dispute by omitting the words pronouncing the throne vacant, and inserting words which merely proclaimed the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen, was rejected by fifty-two votes to forty-seven; and the original clause was then put, and negatived by fifty-five votes to forty-one.