On one side of Compton, the paten was carried by Lloyd, Bishop of Saint Asaph, eminent among the seven confessors of the preceding year.

On the other side, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, lately a member of the High Commission, had charge of the chalice.

Burnet, the junior prelate, preached with all his wonted ability, and more than his wonted taste and judgment.

His grave and eloquent discourse was polluted neither by adulation nor by malignity.

He is said to have been greatly applauded; and it may well be believed that the animated peroration in which he implored heaven to bless the royal pair with long life and mutual love, with obedient subjects, wise counsellors, and faithful allies, with gallant fleets and armies, with victory, with peace, and finally with crowns more glorious and more durable than those which then glittered on the altar of the Abbey, drew forth the loudest hums of the Commons, [103] On the whole the ceremony went off well, and produced something like a revival, faint, indeed, and transient, of the enthusiasm of the preceding December.