Speaker Lenthall asserting the privileges of the House of Commons against Charles I, who had entered the house to seize five Members
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We are in the interior of the Old House of Commons, in the year 1642. The former Chapel of St Stephen, since the mid-sixteenth century the Commons Chamber, had by then lost all traces of its religious origins. On the right, at the Speaker's Chair stands King Charles I: the fortunate accident of two steps lends much-needed height to the diminutive monarch. All around, consternation among the benches of Members, for this was an event that did much to precipitate the Civil War.

Before the king kneels a man, his hat in his hand. He is Speaker Lenthall. It was an unprecedented scene, and one which has never been repeated: that the king should walk into the Commons, assume the Speaker's Chair, and demand the arrest of five leading Members. If the five had not received warning and escaped in advance, there would probably have been bloodshed on the floor of the House of Commons. Finding the birds had flown, the king questioned the Speaker, whose reply has become legendary:

May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as this House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am.
- Lenthall

The king rode back to Whitehall amid shouts of: 'Privilege of Parliament!'.

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