Lord Speaker the bar, and finish by walking up the Temporal (opposition) side toward the Woolsack. The Mace is placed on the Woolsack, where the Lord Speaker sits after a bishop has led the House in prayers. When the Sovereign appoints Lords Commissioners to perform certain actions on his or her behalf (for example, to open or prorogue Parliament, or formally declare Royal Assent), the Lord Speaker is one of them. The other Lords Commissioners, by convention, are the Leader of the House (who has acted as the principal Commissioner since the Lord Chancellor's functions were transferred to the Lord Speaker), the
History of reform of the House of Lords month and retired on a pension of £200 a year. The right of the Lords Spiritual to sit in the House of Lords was removed during the Long Parliament under the Clergy Act 1640 (passed in 1642). As this legislation had passed both Houses and received royal assent, the Royalists accepted it was a valid law. After the restoration of the monarch in 1660 the Lords Spiritual were readmitted to membership of the House of Lords when the Clergy Act 1661 was passed. On 19 March 1649 the House of Commons abolished the House of Lords. This revolutionary action did