The Peers were summoned to St.James's on the twenty-first of December.

About seventy attended.

The Prince requested them to consider the state of the country, and to lay before him the result of their deliberations.
Shortly after appeared a notice inviting all gentlemen who had sate in the House of Commons during the reign of Charles the Second to attend His Highness on the morning of the twenty-sixth.

The Aldermen of London were also summoned; and the Common Council was requested to send a deputation.

[611] It has often been asked, in a reproachful tone, why the invitation was not extended to the members of the Parliament which had been dissolved in the preceding year.