Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/224

146 the service while the Queen in her "bathing-closet" next door, according to the witticism of Lord Hervey, would cry to her lady-in-waiting, "Shut a little that door; those creatures pray so loud, one cannot hear oneself speak."

III

Religion, we are bound to admit, has not, at least since Wolsey's day, been a very obtrusive factor in the life of Hampton Court Palace; yet it has been none the less real for that, and, slight though the ecclesiastical interest of the house may be, it is famous in the history of the English Church for the Conference which first made clear the irreconcilable division between the Church of England, adhering in its formularies to the doctrine and discipline of the undivided Church, and the dissenting bodies who desired an absolute break with the past. The Conference met on Saturday, January 14, 1604, in response to James's proclamation of October 24, 1603, in which he promised to consider the complaints that had been put before him by the so-called Millennary petition, and to take cognisance of the state of the Church. On the evening of the 13th James saw some of the bishops in his private chamber, and the next day the King met the bishops in a solemn conclave. It was proposed that the King, assisted by several bishops and learned divines, should hear the complaints which were to be made by ministers who desired further changes in