The anomaly, however, had been a subject of serious discussion in that House.

On the one hand, they could not pass a vote for the restitution of the House of Peers without trenching on that very question of the future form of Government which they had resolved not to meddle with.

On the other hand, absolute silence on the matter was impossible.

How could the present single House, for example, even if its other acts were held valid, venture on, an Act for the dissolution of that Long Parliament whose peculiar privilege, wrung from Charles I.in May 1641, was that it should never be dissolved except by its own consent, i.e.by the joint-consent of the two component Houses?
Yet this was the very thing--that had to be done before way could be made for the coming Parliament.

The course actually taken was perhaps the only one that the circumstances permitted.