One clause is remarkable; that if any dispute should arise the judges should always explain the doubt in the sense least favorable to conventicles, it being the intention of parliament entirely to suppress them.

Such was the zeal of the commons, that they violated the plainest and most established maxims of civil policy, which require that in all criminal prosecutions favor should always be given to the prisoner.
The affair of Skinner still remained a ground of quarrel between the two houses; but the king prevailed with the peers to accept of the expedient proposed by the commons, that a general razure should be made of all the transactions with regard to that disputed question.
Some attempts were made by the king to effect a union between England and Scotland; though they were too feeble to remove all the difficulties which obstructed that useful and important undertaking.

Commissioners were appointed to meet, in order to regulate the conditions: but the design, chiefly by the intrigues of Lauderdale, soon after came to nothing.
The king about this time began frequently to attend the debates of the house of peers.

He said, that they amused him, and that he found them no less entertaining than a play.

But deeper designs were suspected.