Means were not wanting for the annoyance of Nonconformist ministers by those who wished to restore the surplice and the Liturgy; and on Sunday, the 25th of August, 1661, just a year before the legal enforcement of Uniformity, Oliver Heywood had the Prayer Book publicly presented to him in his Church, with a demand that he would use it in the devotions of the day. It was laid on the pulpit cushion. He quietly took it down, and placed it on the reading-desk, and then went on with the service in the accustomed Presbyterian fashion, being "wonderfully assisted," as he remarks, "that day, in praying and preaching."
It is difficult, even amidst the strongest excitement of the nineteenth century, to conceive of the bitter feelings which existed in the middle of the seventeenth. Our abuse is courtesy, compared with the abuse which prevailed then. Fierce diatribes were uttered from parish pulpits by restored Incumbents against Roundheads, Anabaptists, and Quakers. They were denounced as rebels who had narrowly escaped the gallows. "Many of you," said Dr. Reeve, in the Abbey Church of Waltham, "have gotten a pardon for all your exorbitances, but death will seal no act of indemnity. Ye have escaped the halter of many of your fellow miscreants, but death hath set up her gibbet for you."[271] The press also was plied for reducing intractable parishes into a state of submission. Swarms of pamphlets and broadsides were issued--some reprints, some originals--with a view to support the Church by argument, or by satire, or by ridicule.[272] Marvellous stories also were manufactured about the devil having appeared to fanatics, who, late at night, were on their way to Conventicles; and sharp, severe, and unjust things were also said on the other side.[273]
Parliament, which had been adjourned in July, reassembled in November. Charles, on the 20th of that month, attired in crimson velvet, the crown on his head, the sceptre in his hand, sat upon the throne of his fathers, attended by a good number of Earls and Barons, occupying their benches. It was a proud day for the Church of England; for then, the first time after a lapse of twenty years, the Spiritual Fathers, in their scarlet robes, as Peers of the realm, filled their ancient seats; and His Majesty, it seems, came to the House partly in honour of their re-instatement. "My Lords and Gentlemen of the House of Commons," he remarked; "I know the visit I make you this day is not necessary--is not of course--yet, if there were no more in it, it would not be strange that I come to see what you and I have so long desired to see, the Lords, Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons of England met together."