They had appointed a Mr.John Smythe to be their Clerk, in lieu of Mr.Henry Scobell, now made general "Clerk of the Parliament" and transferred to the Other House, and they had fixed that day week as a day of prayer for divine assistance, when the Usher of the Black Rod appeared to summon them to meet his Highness in the Other House.

Arranging that the Sergeant-at-Arms should carry the mace with him, and stand by the Speaker with the mace at his shoulder through the whole interview with his Highness, the House obeyed the summons.[1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, Jan.

20, 1657-8, et seq.; Ludlow, 596-597; List of the 43 who sat in the Upper House in pamphlet of 1659 already cited, called _A Second Narrative_, &c.] Cromwell's speech to the two Houses (Speech XVI.) opened significantly with the words "_My Lords, and Gentlemen of the House of Commons_." It was a very quiet speech, somewhat slowly and heavily delivered, with "peace" for the key-word.

He represented the nation as now in such a nourishing state, especially in the possession of a settled and efficient Public Ministry of the Gospel, and at the same time of ample religious liberty for all, that nothing more was needed than oblivion of past differences, and a hearty co-operation of the two Houses with each other, and with himself.
Apologizing for being too ill to discourse more at length, he asked Lord Commissioner Fiennes to do so for him.

The speech of Fiennes was essentially a continuation in the same strain, but with a gorgeousness and variety of metaphor, Biblical and poetical, in description of the new era of peace and its duties, utterly beyond the bounds of usual Parliamentary oratory even then, and to which Cromwell and the rest, with all their experience of metaphor from the pulpit, must have listened with astonishment.