The people assisted with great alacrity on this occasion.
The abuses of petitioning in the preceding reign had been attended with the worst consequences; and to prevent such irregular practices for the future, it was enacted that no more than twenty hands should be fixed to any petition, unless with the sanction of three justices, or the major part of the grand jury, and that no petition should be presented to the king or either house by above ten persons.

The penalty annexed to a transgression of this law was a fine of a hundred pounds and three months' imprisonment.
The bishops, though restored to their spiritual authority, were still excluded from parliament, by the law which the late king had passed immediately before the commencement of the civil disorders.

Great violence, both against the king and the house of peers, had been employed in passing this law; and on that account alone the partisans of the church were provided with a plausible pretence for repealing it.
Charles expressed much satisfaction when he gave his assent to the act for that purpose.

It is certain that the authority of the crown, as well as that of the church, was interested in restoring the prelates to their former dignity.

But those who deemed every acquisition of the prince a detriment to the people, were apt to complain of this instance of complaisance in the parliament.
After an adjournment of some months, the parliament was again assembled, and proceeded in the same spirit as before.