ABSTRACT
In the Commons, the compromise solution of an Exclusion Bill to remove the secular powers of bishops and end their presence in the Lords was accepted, but the Lords rejected the Bill outright, together with a Bill providing that all holders of office in church or state must take the Protestation Oath or be regarded as unfit to hold such office. Relations between the two Houses had not yet broken down entirely. On 24 June, the Ten Propositions set out Parliament’s position in any future negotiations with the king, representing a programme of reform on which moderate opinion in both Houses was agreed.30 Had these Propositions ever been put to the king, it is likely that there would have been much difficulty in securing his agreement, since they required him to control his queen and her Catholic connections, to accept restraints on his choice of advisors and control of the army, including the disbandment of a number of regiments at the will of Parliament, and to give Parliament a role in ecclesiastical changes. Catholics were to be barred from the court and in particular from the presence of the Prince of Wales, the future Charles II.
