At Uxbridge, within the parliamentary quarters, the commissioners from the two parties met each other.[a] Those from the parliament had been commanded to admit of no deviation from the substance of the propositions already voted; to confine themselves to the task of showing that their demands were conformable to reason, and therefore not to be refused; and to insist that the questions of religion, the militia, and Ireland, should each be successively debated during the term of three days, and continued in rotation till twenty days had expired, when, if no agreement were made, the treaty should terminate. They demanded that episcopacy should be abolished, and the Directory be substituted in place of the Book of Common Prayer; that the command of the army and navy should be vested in the two houses, and intrusted by them to certain commissioners of their own appointment; and that the cessation in Ireland should be broken, and hostilities should be immediately renewed. The king's commissioners replied, that his conscience would not allow him to consent to the proposed change of religious worship, but that he was willing to consent to a law restricting the jurisdiction of the bishops within the narrowest bounds, granting every reasonable indulgence to tender consciences, and raising on the church property the sum of one hundred thousand [Footnote 1: Charles was now persuaded even to address the two houses by the style of "the Lords and Commons assembled in the parliament of England at Westminster," instead of "the Lords and Commons of parliament assembled at Westminster," which he had formerly used.--Journals, vii. 91. He says he would not have done it, if he could have found two in the council to support him.--Works, 144, Evelyn's Mem. ii. App. 90. This has been alleged, but I see not with what reason, as a proof of his insincerity in the treaty.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1645. Jan. 30.]