The earl of Holland, lieutenant of Middlesex, had ordered a hundred musketeers to guard her; but finding that they had imbibed the same prejudices with the rest of their countrymen, and were unwillingly employed in such a service, he laid the case before the house of peers, for the king's authority was now entirely annihilated.
He represented the indignity of the action, that so great a princess, mother to the king of France and to the queens of Spain and England, should be affronted by the multitude.

He observed the indelible reproach which would fall upon the nation, if that unfortunate queen should suffer any violence from the misguided zeal of the people.

He urged the sacred rights of hospitality, due to every one, much more to a person in distress, of so high a rank, with whom the nation was so nearly connected.

The peers thought proper to communicate the matter to the commons, whose authority over the people was absolute.

The commons agreed to the necessity of protecting the queen mother; but at the same time prayed that she might be desired to depart the kingdom, "for the quieting those jealousies in the hearts of his majesty's well-affected subjects, occasioned by some ill instruments about that queen's person, by the flowing of priests and Papists to her house, and by the use and practice of the idolatry of the mass, and exercise of other superstitious services of the Romish church, to the great scandal of true religion."[*] Charles, in the former part of his reign, had endeavored to overcome the intractable and encroaching spirit of the commons, by a perseverance in his own measures, by a stately dignity of behavior, and by maintaining at their utmost height, and even perhaps stretching beyond former precedent, the rights of his prerogative.