The real battle, of course, was now at hand, and to any one 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 reinforced 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[9]; and the original clause was then put and negatived by fifty-five votes to forty-one. Thus amended by the substitution of "deserted" for "abdicated," and the omission of the words "and that the throne is thereby vacant," the resolution was sent back to the Commons, who instantly and without a division disagreed with the amendments. The situation was now becoming critical. The prospect of a deadlock between the two branches of the Convention threw London into a ferment; crowds assembled in Palace Yard; petitions were presented in that tumultuous fashion which converts supplication into menace. To their common credit, however, both parties united in resistance to these attempts at popular coercion; and William himself interposed to enjoin a stricter police of the capital. On Monday, the 4th of February, the Lords resolved to insist on their amendments; on the following day the Commons reaffirmed their disagreement with them by 282 votes to 151. A free Conference between the two Houses was then arranged, and met on the following day.