Chapter VI: The Protectorate (1)

Cromwell Calls The Little Parliament--Dissolves It--Makes Himself Protector--Subjugation Of The Scottish Royalists--Peace With The Dutch--New Parliament--Its Dissolution--Insurrection In England--Breach With Spain--Troubles In Piedmont--Treaty With France.

Whoever has studied the character of Cromwell will have remarked the anxiety with which he laboured to conceal his real designs from the notice of his adherents. If credit were due to his assertions, he cherished none of those aspiring thoughts which agitate the breasts of the ambitious; the consciousness of his weakness taught him to shrink from the responsibility of power; and at every step in his ascent to greatness, he affected to sacrifice his own feelings to the judgment and importunity of others. But in dissolving the late parliament he had deviated from this his ordinary course: he had been compelled to come boldly forward by the obstinacy or the policy of his opponents, who during twelve months had triumphed over his intrigues, and were preparing to pass an act which would place new obstacles in his path. Now, however, that he had forcibly taken into his own hands the reins of government, it remained for him to determine whether he should retain them in his grasp, or deliver them over to others. He preferred the latter for the maturity of time was not yet come: he saw that, among the officers who blindly submitted to be the tools of his ambition, there were several who would abandon the idol of their worship, whenever they should suspect him of a design to subvert the public liberty. But if he parted with power for the moment, it was in such manner as to warrant the hope that it would shortly return to him under another form, not as won by the sword of the military, but as deposited in his hands by the judgment of parliament.

It could not escape the sagacity of the lord-general that the fanatics, with whose aid he had subverted the late government, were not the men to be intrusted with the destinies of the three kingdoms; yet he deemed it his interest to indulge them in their wild notions of civil and religious reformation, and to suffer himself for a while to be guided by their counsels. Their first measure was to publish a Vindication of their Proceedings.[1] The long parliament they pronounced[a] incapable "of answering those ends which God, his people, and the whole nation, expected." Had it been permitted to sit a day longer, it would "at one blow have laid in the dust the interest of all honest men and of their glorious cause." In its place the council of war would "call to the government persons of approved fidelity and honesty;" and therefore required "public officers and ministers to proceed in their respective places," and conjured "those who feared and loved the name of the Lord, to be instant with him day and night in their behalf."[2]

[Footnote 1: Printed by Henry Hills and Thomas Brewster, printers to the army, 1653.]

[Footnote 2: Ludlow, ii. 24. Thurloe, i. 289, 395. Sir H. Vane, after all the affronts which he had received, was offered a place in the council; but he replied that, though the reign of the saints was begun, he would defer his share in it till he should go to heaven.--Thurloe, i. 265.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. April 22.]

They next proceeded to establish[a] a council of state. Some proposed that it should consist of ten members, some of seventy, after the model of the Jewish Sanhedrim; and others of thirteen, in imitation of Christ and his twelve apostles. The last project was adopted as equally scriptural, and more convenient. With Cromwell, in the place of lord president, were joined four civilians and eight officers of high rank; so that the army still retained its ascendancy, and the council of state became in fact a military council.

From this moment for some months it would have embarrassed any man to determine where the supreme power resided. Some of the judges were superseded by others: new commissioners of the treasury and admiralty were appointed; even the monthly assessment of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds was continued for an additional half-year; and yet these and similar acts, all of them belonging to the highest authority in the state, appeared to emanate from different sources; these from the council of war, those from the council of state, and several from the lord-general himself, sometimes with the advice of one or other, sometimes without the advice of either of these councils.[1]

At the same time the public mind was agitated by the circulation of reports the most unfounded, and the advocacy of projects the most contradictory. This day it was rumoured that Cromwell had offered to recall

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 556, 557, 559. Leicester's Journal, 142. Merc. Polit. No. 157.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. April 30.]

the royal family, on condition that Charles should marry one of his daughters; the next, that he intended to ascend the throne himself, and, for that purpose, had already prepared the insignia of royalty. Here, signatures were solicited to a petition for the re-establishment of the ancient constitution; there, for a government by successive parliaments. Some addresses declared the conviction of the subscribers that the late dissolution was necessary; others prayed that the members might be allowed to return to the house, for the sole purpose of legally dissolving themselves by their own authority. In the mean while, the lord-general continued to wear the mask of humility and godliness; he prayed and preached with more than his wonted fervour; and his piety was rewarded, according to the report of his confidants, with frequent communications from the Holy Spirit.[1] In the month of May he spent eight days in close consultation with his military divan; and the result was a determination to call a new parliament, but a parliament modelled on principles unknown to the history of this or of any other nation. It was to be a parliament of saints, of men who had not offered themselves as candidates, or been chosen by the people, but whose chief qualification consisted in holiness of life, and whose call to the office of legislators came from the choice of the council. With this view the ministers took the sense of the "congregational churches" in the several counties; the returns contained the names of the persons, "faithful, fearing God, and hating covetousness," who were deemed qualified for this high and important trust; and out of these the council in the presence of the lord-general selected one hundred and thirty-nine

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 256, 289, 306.]

representatives for England, six for Wales, six for Ireland, and five for Scotland.[1] To each of them was sent[a] a writ of summons under the signature of Cromwell, requiring his personal attendance at Whitehall on a certain day, to take upon himself the trust, and to serve the office of member for some particular place. Of the surprise with which the writs were received by many the reader may judge. Yet, out of the whole number, two only returned a refusal: by most the very extraordinary manner of their election was taken as a sufficient proof that the call was from heaven.[2]

On the appointed day, the 4th of July, one hundred and twenty of these faithful and godly men attended[b] in the council-chamber at Whitehall. They were seated on chairs round the table; and the lord-general took his station near the middle window, supported on each side by a numerous body of officers. He addressed the company standing, and it was believed by his admirers, perhaps by himself, "that the Spirit of God spoke in him and by him." Having vindicated in a long narrative the dissolution of the late parliament, he congratulated the persons present on the high office to which they had been called. It was not of their own seeking. It had come to them from God by the choice of the army, the usual channel through which in these latter days the Divine mercies had been dispensed to the nation. He would not

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 395. Compare the list of the members in Heath, 350, with the letters in Milton's State Papers, 92, 94, 96.]

[Footnote 2: Thurloe, i. 274. Whitelock, 547. "It was a great satisfaction and encouragement to some that their names had been presented as to that service, by the churches and other godly persons."--Exact Relation of the Proceedings, &c. of the last parliament, 1654, p. 2.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. June 6.] [Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. July 4.]

charge them, but he would pray that they might "exercise the judgment of mercy and truth," and might "be faithful with the saints," however those saints might differ respecting forms of worship. His enthusiasm kindled as he proceeded; and the visions of futurity began to open to his imagination. It was, he exclaimed, marvellous in his eyes; they were called to war with the Lamb against his enemies; they were come to the threshold of the door, to the very edge of the promises and prophecies; God was about to bring his people out of the depths of the sea; perhaps to bring the Jews home to their station out of the isles of the sea. "God," he exclaimed, "shakes the mountains and they reel; God hath a high hill, too, and his hill is as the hill of Bashan; and the chariots of God are twenty thousand of angels; and God will dwell upon this hill for ever." At the conclusion "of this grave, Christian, and seasonable speech," he placed on the table an instrument under his own hand and seal, intrusting to them the supreme authority for the space of fifteen months from that day, then to be transmitted by them to another assembly, the members of which they should previously have chosen.[1]

The next day[a] was devoted by the new representatives to exercises of religion, not in any of the churches of the capital, but in the room where the late parliament was accustomed to sit. Thirteen of the most gifted among them successively prayed and preached, from eight in the morning till six in the evening; and several affirmed "that they had never enjoyed so much of the spirit and presence of Christ in any of the meetings

[Footnote 1: Proceedings, No. 197. Parl. Hist. xx. 153. Milton's State Papers, 106. This last appears to me a more faithful copy than that printed by authority.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. July 5.]

and exercises of religion in all their lives, as they did on that day." As it was solely to their reputation for superior godliness that the majority of the members owed their election, the lord-general probably expected from them little opposition to his measures; but they no sooner applied to business than he saw reason to be alarmed at the promptitude and resolution which they displayed. Though not distinguished by their opulence, they were men of independent fortunes;[1] during the late revolutions they had learned to think for themselves on the momentous questions which divided the nation; and their fanaticism, by converting their opinions into matters of conscience, had superadded an obstinacy of character not easily to be subdued. To Cromwell himself they always behaved with respect. They invited him with four of his officers to sit as a member among them; and they made him the offer of the palace of Hampton Court in exchange for his house of Newhall. But they believed and showed that they were the masters. They scorned to submit to the dictation of their servants; and, if they often followed the advice, they as often rejected the recommendations and amended the resolutions of the council of state.

One of the first subjects which engaged their attention was a contest, in which the lord-general, with all his power, was foiled by the boldness of a single individual.

[Footnote 1: They have been generally described as men in trade, and of no education; and because one of them, Praise-God Barebone, was a leather-dealer in Fleet-street, the assembly is generally known by the denomination of Barebone's parliament.--Heath, 350. It is, however, observed by one of them, that, "if all had not very bulky estates, yet they had free estates, and were not of broken fortunes, or such as owed great sums of money, and stood in need of privilege and protection as formerly."--Exact Relation, 19. See also Whitelock, 559.]

At the very moment when he hoped to reap the fruit of his dissimulation and intrigues, he found himself unexpectedly confronted by the same fearless and enterprising demagogue, who, at the birth of the commonwealth, had publicly denounced his ambition, and excited the soldiery against him. Lilburne, on the dissolution of the long parliament, had requested permission of Cromwell to return from banishment. Receiving no answer, he came[a] over at his own risk,--a bold but imprudent step; for what indulgence could he expect from that powerful adventurer, whom he had so often denounced to the nation as "a thief, a robber, an usurper, and a murderer?" On the day after his arrival in the capital he was committed to Newgate. It seemed a case which might safely be intrusted to a jury. His return by the act of banishment had been made felony; and of his identity there could be no doubt. But his former partisans did not abandon him in his distress. Petitions with thousands of signatures were presented, praying for a respite of the trial till the meeting of the parliament; and Cromwell, willing, perhaps, to shift the odium from himself to that assembly, gave his consent. Lilburne petitioned the new parliament; his wife petitioned; his friends from the neighbouring counties petitioned; the apprentices in London did not only petition, they threatened. But the council laid before the house the depositions of spies and informers to prove that Lilburne, during his banishment, had intrigued with the royalists against the commonwealth;[1] and the prisoner himself, by the intemperance

[Footnote 1: It appears from Clarendon's Letters at the time, that Lilburne was intimate with Buckingham, and that Buckingham professed to expect much from him in behalf of the royal cause; while, on the contrary, Clarendon believed that Lilburne would do nothing for it, and Buckingham not much more.--Clarendon Papers, iii. 75, 79, 98.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1653. June 15.]

of his publications, contributed to irritate members. They refused to interfere; and he was arraigned[a] at the sessions, where, instead of pleading, he kept his prosecutors at bay during five successive days, appealing to Magna Charta and the rights of Englishmen, producing exceptions against the indictment, and demanding his oyer, or the specification of the act for his banishment, of the judgment on which the act was founded, and of the charge which led to that judgment. The court was perplexed. They knew not how to refuse; for he claimed it as his right, and necessary for his defence. On the other hand, they could not grant it, because no record of the charge or judgment was known to exist.

After an adjournment[b] to the next sessions, two days were spent in arguing the exceptions of the prisoner, and his right to the oyer. At length, on a threat that the court would proceed to judgment, he pleaded[c] not guilty. The trial lasted three days. His friends, to the amount of several thousands, constantly attended; some hundreds of them were said to be armed for the purpose of rescuing him, if he were condemned; and papers were circulated that, if Lilburne perished, twenty thousand individuals would perish with him. Cromwell, to encourage the court, posted two companies of soldiers in the immediate vicinity; quartered three regiments of infantry, and one of cavalry, in the city; and ordered a numerous force to march towards the metropolis. The particulars of the trial are lost. We only know that the prosecutors were content with showing[d] that Lilburne was the person named in the act; that the court directed the jury to speak only to

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. July 13.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1653. August 11.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1653. August 16.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1653. August 1.]

that fact; and that the prisoner made a long and vehement defence, denying the authority of the late parliament to banish him, because legally it had expired at the king's death, and because the House of Commons was not a court of justice; and, maintaining to the jury, that they were judges of the law as well as of the fact; that, unless they believed him guilty of crime, they could not conscientiously return a verdict which would consign him to the gallows; and that an act of parliament, if it were evidently unjust, was essentially void, and no justification to men who pronounced according to their oaths. At a late hour at night the jury declared[a] him not guilty; and the shout of triumph, received and prolonged by his partisans, reached the ears of Cromwell at Whitehall.

It was not, however, the intention of the lord-general that his victim should escape. The examination[b] of the judges and jurymen before the council, with a certified copy of certain opprobrious expressions, used by Lilburne in his defence, was submitted[c] to the house, and an order was obtained that, notwithstanding his acquittal, he should be confined[d] in the Tower, and that no obedience should be paid to any writ of habeas corpus issued from the court of Upper Bench in his behalf. These measures gave great offence. It was complained, and with justice, that the men who pretended to take up arms against the king in support of the liberties of Englishmen, now made no scruple of trampling the same liberties under foot, whenever it suited their resentment or interest.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Thurloe, i. 324, 367, 368, 369, 429, 430, 435, 441, 442, 451, 453; Exact Relation, p. 5; Whitelock, 558, 560, 561, 563, 591; Journals, July 13, 14, Aug. 2, 22, 27, Nov. 26. In 1656 or 1657 this turbulent demagogue joined the society of Friends. He died Aug. 29, 1657, at Eltham, whence, on the 31st, the body of the meek Quaker was conveyed for sepulture to the new church-yard adjoining to Bedlam.--Cromwelliana, p. 168.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. August 20.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1653. August 22.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1653. August 27.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1653. Nov. 26.]

In the prosecution and punishment of Lilburne, the parliament was unanimous; on most other points it was divided into two parties distinctly marked; that of the Independents, who, inferior in number, superior in talents, adhered to the lord-general and the council, and that of the Anabaptists, who, guided by religious and political fanaticism, ranged themselves under the banner of Major-General Harrison as their leader. These "sectaries" anticipated the reign of Christ with his saints upon earth, they believed themselves called by God to prepare the way for this marvellous revolution; and they considered it their duty to commence by reforming all the abuses which they could discover either in church or state.[1]

In their proceedings there was much to which no one, who had embarked with them in the same cause, could reasonably object. They established a system of the most rigid economy; the regulations of the excise were revised; the constitution of the treasury was simplified and improved; unnecessary offices were totally abolished, and the salaries of the others considerably reduced; the public accounts were subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny; new facilities were given to the sale of the lands now considered as national property. Provision was made for the future registration of marriages, births, and deaths.[2] But the fanaticism

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 392, 396, 501, 515, 523.]

[Footnote 2: For the validity of marriage, if the parties were minors, was required the consent of the parents or guardians, and the age of sixteen in the male, of fourteen in the female; and in all cases that the names of the parties intending to be married should be given to the registrar of the parish, whose duty it was to proclaim them, according to their wish, either in the church after the morning exercise on three successive Lord's days, or in the market-place on three successive market-days. Having received from him a certificate of the proclamations, containing any exceptions which might have been made, they were to exhibit it to a magistrate, and, before him, to pledge their faith to each other "in the presence of God, the searcher of hearts." The religious ceremony was optional, the civil necessary for the civil effects of marriage,--See the Journals for the month of August, and Scobell.]

of their language, and the extravagance of their notions, exposed them to ridicule; their zeal for reform, by interfering with the interests of several different bodies at the same time, multiplied their enemies; and, before the dissolution of the house, they had earned, justly or unjustly, the hatred of the army, of the lawyers, of the gentry, and of the clergy.

1. It was with visible reluctance that they voted the monthly tax of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds for the support of the military and naval establishments. They were, indeed, careful not to complain of the amount; their objections were pointed against the nature of the tax, and the inequality of the assessments;[1] but this pretext could not hide their real object from the jealousy of their adversaries, and their leaders were openly charged with seeking to reduce the number of the army, that they might lessen the influence of the general.

2. From the collection of the taxes they proceeded to the administration of the law. In almost every petition presented of late years to the supreme authority of the nation, complaints had been made of the court of Chancery, of its dilatory proceedings, of the enormous expense which it entailed on its suitors, and of the suspicious nature of its decisions, so liable to be influenced by the personal partialities and interests of

[Footnote 1: In some places men paid but two; in others, ten or twelve shillings in the pound.--Exact Relation, 10. The assessments fell on the owners, not on the tenants.--Thurloe, i. 755.]

the judge.[1] The long parliament had not ventured to grapple with the subject; but this, the little parliament, went at once to the root of the evil, and voted that the whole system should be abolished. But then, came the appalling difficulty, how to dispose of the causes actually pending in the court, and how to substitute in its place a less objectionable tribunal. Three bills introduced for that purpose were rejected as inapplicable or insufficient: the committee prepared a fourth; it was read twice in one day, and committed, and would probably have passed, had not the subsequent proceedings been cut short by the dissolution of the parliament.[2]

3. But the reformers were not content with the abolition of a single court; they resolved to cleanse the whole of the Augean stable. What, they asked, made up the law? A voluminous collection of statutes, many of them almost unknown, and many inapplicable to existing circumstances; the dicta of judges, perhaps ignorant, frequently partial and interested; the reports of cases, but so contradictory that they were

[Footnote 1: "It was confidently reported by knowing gentlemen of worth, that there were depending in that court 23,000 (2 or 3,000?) causes; that some of them had been there depending five, some ten, some twenty, some thirty years; and that there had been spent in causes many hundreds, nay, thousands of pounds, to the utter undoing of many families."--Exact Relation, 12.]

[Footnote 2: Journals, Aug. 5, Oct. 17, 23, Nov. 3. Exact Relation, 12-15. The next year, however, Cromwell took the task into his own hands; and, in 1655, published an ordinance, consisting of sixty-seven articles, "for the better regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of the high court of Chancery." Widrington and Whitelock, the commissioners of the great seal, and Lenthall, master of the rolls, informed him by letter, that they had sought the Lord, but did not feel themselves free to act according to the ordinance. The protector took the seals from the two first, and gave them Fiennes and Lisle; Lenthall overcame his scruples, and remained in office.--See the ordinance in Scobell, 324; the objections to it in Whitelock, 621.]

regularly marshalled in hosts against each other; and the usages of particular districts, only to be ascertained through the treacherous memories of the most aged of the inhabitants. Englishmen had a right to know the laws by which they were to be governed; it was easy to collect from the present system all that was really useful; to improve it by necessary additions; and to comprise the whole within the small compass of a pocket volume. With this view, it was resolved to compose a new body of law; the task was assigned to a committee; and a commencement was made by a revision of the statutes respecting treason and murder.[1] But these votes and proceedings scattered alarm through the courts at Westminster, and hundreds of voices, and almost as many pens, were employed to protect from ruin the venerable fabric of English jurisprudence. They ridiculed the presumption of these ignorant and fanatical legislators, ascribed to them the design of substituting the law of Moses for the law of the land, and conjured the people to unite in defence of their own "birthright and inheritance," for the preservation of which so many miseries had been endured, so much blood had been shed.[2]

4. From men of professed sanctity much had been expected in favour of religion. The sincerity of their seal they proved by the most convincing test,--an act for the extirpation of popish priests and Jesuits, and the disposal of two-thirds of the real and personal

[Footnote 1: Journals, Aug. 18, 19, Oct. 20. Exact Relation, 15-18.]

[Footnote 2: The charge of wishing to introduce the law of God was frequently repeated by Cromwell. It owed its existence to this, that many would not allow of the punishment of death for theft, or of the distinction between manslaughter and murder, because no such things are to be found in the law of Moses.--Exact Relation, 17.]

estates of popish recusants.[1] After this preliminary skirmish with antichrist, they proceeded to attack Satan himself "in his stronghold" of advowsons. It was, they contended, contrary to reason, that any private individual should possess the power of imposing a spiritual guide upon his neighbours; and therefore they resolved that presentations should he abolished, and the choice of the minister be vested in the body of the parishioners; a vote which taught the patrons of livings to seek the protection of the lord-general against the oppression of the parliament. From advowsons, the next step was to tithes. At the commencement of the session, after a long debate, it was generally understood that tithes ought to be done away with, and in their place a compensation be made to the impropriators, and a decent maintenance be provided for the clergy. The great subject of dispute was, which question should have the precedence in point of time, the abolition of the impost, or the substitution of the equivalent. For five months the committee intrusted with the subject was silent; now, to prevent, as it was thought, the agitation of the question of advowsons, they presented a report respecting the method of ejecting scandalous, and settling godly, ministers; to which they appended their own opinion, that incumbents, rectors, and impropriators had a property in tithes. This report provoked a debate of five days. When the question was put on the first part, though the committee had mustered all the force of the Independents in its favour, it was rejected by a

[Footnote 1: To procure ready money for the treasury, it was proposed to allow recusants to redeem the two-thirds for their lives, at four years' purchase. This amendment passed, but with great opposition, on the ground that it amounted to a toleration of idolatry.--Ibid, ii. Thurloe, i. 553.]

majority of two. The second part, respecting the property in tithes, was not put to the vote; its fate was supposed to be included in that of the former; and it was rumoured through the capital that the parliament had voted the abolition of tithes, and with them of the ministry, which derived its maintenance from tithes.[1]

Here it should be noticed that, on every Monday during the session, Feakes and Powell, two Anabaptist preachers, had delivered weekly lectures to numerous audiences at Blackfriars. They were eloquent enthusiasts, commissioned, as they fancied, by the Almighty, and fearless of any earthly tribunal. They introduced into their sermons most of the subjects discussed in parliament, and advocated the principles of their sect with a force and extravagance which alarmed Cromwell and the council. Their favourite topic was the Dutch war. God, they maintained, had given Holland into the hands of the English; it was to be the landing-place of the saints, whence they should proceed to pluck the w---- of Babylon from her chair and to establish the kingdom of Christ on the continent; and they threatened with every kind of temporal and everlasting woe the man who should advise peace on any other terms than the incorporation of the United Provinces with the commonwealth of England.[2] When it was known that Cromwell had receded from this demand, their indignation

[Footnote 1: Journals, July 15-19, Nov. 17, Dec. 1, 6-10. Exact Relation, 418-424.]

[Footnote 2: Beverning, one of the Dutch ambassadors, went to the meeting on one of these occasions. In a letter, he says:--"The scope and intention is to preach down governments, and to stir up the people against the united Netherlands. Being then in the assembly of the saints, I heard one prayer, two sermons. But, good God! what cruel and abominable, and most horrid trumpets of fire, murder, and flame."--Thurloe, i. 442.]

stripped the pope of many of those titles with which he had so long been honoured by the Protestant churches, and the lord-general was publicly declared to be the beast in the Apocalypse, the old dragon, and the man of sin. Unwilling to invade the liberty of religious meetings, he for some time bore these insults with an air of magnanimity: at last he summoned[a] the two preachers before himself and the council. But the heralds of the Lord of Hosts quailed not before the servants of an earthly commonwealth: they returned rebuke for rebuke, charged Cromwell with an unjustifiable assumption of power, and departed from the conference unpunished and unabashed.[1]

By the public the sermons at Blackfriars were considered as explanatory of the views and principles of the Anabaptists in the house. The enemies of these reformers multiplied daily: ridicule and abuse were poured upon them from every quarter; and it became evident to all but themselves that the hour of their fall was rapidly approaching. Cromwell, their maker, had long ago determined to reduce them to their original nothing; and their last vote respecting the ministry appeared to furnish a favourable opportunity. The next day, the Sunday, he passed with his friends in secret consultation; on the Monday these friends mustered in considerable numbers, and at an early hour took their seats in the house. Colonel Sydenham rose. He reviewed[b] all the proceedings of the parliament, condemned them as calculated to injure almost every interest in the state, and, declaring that he would no longer sit in so useless an assembly, moved that the house should proceed to Whitehall, and deliver back the supreme power into the hands of him from whom

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 442, 534, 545, 560, 591, 621.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Dec. 6.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1653. Dec. 12.]

it was derived. The motion was seconded and opposed; but the Independents had come to act, not to debate. They immediately rose: the speaker, who was in the secret, left the chair; the sergeant and the clerk accompanied him, and near fifty members followed in a body. The reformers, only twenty-seven in number (for most of them had not yet arrived), gazed on each other with surprise; their first resource was to fall to prayer; and they were employed in that holy exercise, when Goff and White, two officers, entered, and requested them to withdraw. Being required to show their warrant, they called in a company of soldiers. No resistance was now offered; the military cleared the house, and the keys were left with the guard.[1]

In the mean while the speaker, preceded by the mace, and followed by Sydenham and his friends, walked through the street to Whitehall. In the way, and after his arrival, he was joined by several members, by some through curiosity, by others through fear. At Whitehall, a form of resignation of the supreme power was hastily engrossed by the clerk, subscribed by the speaker and his followers, and tendered by them to Cromwell. The lord-general put on an air of surprise; he was not prepared for such an offer, he would not load himself with so heavy a burthen. But his reluctance yielded to the remonstrances and entreaties of Lambert and the officers, and the instrument was laid in a chamber of the palace for the convenience of such members as had not yet the opportunity of subscribing their names.

[Footnote 1: Exact Relation, 25, 26. True Narrative, 3. Thurloe, i. 730. I adopt the number given by Mansel, as he could have no motive to diminish it.]

On the third day the signatures amounted to eighty, an absolute majority of the whole house; on the fourth, a new constitution was published, and Cromwell obtained the great object of his ambition,--the office and authority, though without the title, of king.[1]

On that day, about one in the afternoon, the lord-general repaired in his carriage from the palace to Westminster Hall,[a] through two lines of military, composed of five regiments of foot and three of horse. The procession formed at the door. Before him walked the aldermen, the judges, two commissioners of the great seal, and the lord mayor; behind him the two councils of state and of the army. They mounted to the court of Chancery, where a chair of state with a cushion had been placed on a rich carpet. Cromwell was dressed in a suit and cloak of black velvet, with long boots, and a broad gold band round his hat. He took his place before the chair, between the two commissioners; the judges stood in a half-circle behind it, and the civic officers ranged themselves on the right, the military on the left, side of the court.

[Footnote 1: Exact Relation, 26. True Narrative, 4. Ludlow, ii. 33. Clarendon, iii. 484. Thurloe, i. 754. The author of this new constitution is not known. Ludlow tells us that it was first communicated by Lambert to a council of field officers. When some objections were made, he replied, that the general was willing to consider any amendments which might be proposed, but would not depart from the project itself. Some, therefore, suggested that, after the death of the present lord-general, the civil and military government should be kept separate, and that no protector should be succeeded by any of his relatives. This gave so much offence, that, at a second meeting, Lambert, having informed them that the lord-general would take care of the civil administration, dismissed them to their respective commands.--Ludlow, ii. 37. It is to this, perhaps, that the Dutch ambassador alludes, when he says that Cromwell desisted from his project of being declared king on account of the displeasure of the officers.--Thurloe, i. 644.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Dec. 16.]

Lambert now came forward to address the lord-general. He noticed the dissolution of the late parliament, observed that the exigency of the time required a strong and stable government, and prayed his excellency in the name of the army and of the three nations to accept the office of protector of the commonwealth. Cromwell, though it was impossible to conceal the purpose for which he had come thither, could not yet put off the habit of dissimulation; and if, after some demur, he expressed his consent, it was with an appearance of reluctance which no one present could believe to be real.

Jessop, one of the clerks of the council, was next ordered to read the "instrument of government," consisting of forty-two articles. 1. By it the legislative power was invested in a lord-protector and parliament, but with a provision that every act passed by the parliament should become law at the expiration of twenty days, even without the consent of the protector; unless he could persuade the house of the reasonableness of his objections. The parliament was not to be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved, without its own consent, within the first five months after its meeting; and a new parliament was to be called within three years after the dissolution of the last. The number of the members was fixed according to the plan projected by Vane at the close of the long parliament, at four hundred for England, thirty for Scotland, and thirty for Ireland. Most of the boroughs were disfranchised, and the number of county members was increased. Every person possessed of real or personal property to the value of two hundred pounds had a right to vote,[1] unless he were a malignant or delinquent, or professor

[Footnote 1: During the long parliament this qualification had been adopted on the motion of Cromwell, in place of a clause recommended by the committee, which gave the elective franchise under different regulations to freeholders, copyholders, tenants for life, and leaseholders,--See Journals, 30th March, 1653.]

of the Catholic faith; and the disqualifications to which the electors were subject attached also to the persons elected. 2. The executive power was made to reside in the lord-protector acting with the advice of his council. He possessed, moreover, the power of treating with foreign states with the _advice_, and of making peace or war with the _consent_, of the council. To him also belonged the disposal of the military and naval power, and the appointment of the great officers of state, with the approbation of parliament, and, in the intervals of parliament, with that of the council, but subject to the subsequent approbation of the parliament. 3. Laws could not be made, nor taxes imposed, but by common consent in parliament. 4. The civil list was fixed at two hundred thousand pounds, and a yearly revenue ordered to be raised for the support of an army of thirty thousand men, two-thirds infantry, and one-third cavalry, with such a navy as the lord-protector should think necessary. 5. All who professed faith in God by Jesus Christ were to be protected in the exercise of their religion, with the exception of prelatists, papists, and those who taught licentiousness under the pretence of religion. 6. The lord-general Cromwell was named lord-protector; his successors were to be chosen by the council. The first parliament was to assemble on the 3rd of the following December; and till that time the lord-protector was vested with power to raise the moneys necessary for the public service, and to make ordinances which should have the force of law, till orders were taken in parliament respecting the same.

At the conclusion, Cromwell, raising his right hand and his eyes to heaven with great solemnity, swore to observe, and cause to be observed, all the articles of the instrument; and Lambert, falling on his knees, offered to the protector a civic sword in the scabbard, which he accepted, laying aside his own, to denote that he meant to govern by constitutional, and not by military, authority. He then seated himself in the chair, put on his hat while the rest stood uncovered, received the seal from the commissioners, the sword from the lord mayor, delivered them back again to the same individuals, and, having exercised these acts of sovereign authority, returned in procession to his carriage, and repaired in state to Whitehall. The same day the establishment of the government by a lord-protector and triennial parliaments, and the acceptance of the protectorship by the lord-general, were announced to the public by proclamation, with all the ceremonies hitherto used on the accession of a new monarch.[1]

It cannot be supposed that this elevation of Cromwell to the supreme power was viewed with satisfaction by any other class of men than his brethren in arms, who considered his greatness their own work, and expected from his gratitude their merited reward. But the nation was surfeited with revolutions. Men had suffered so severely from the ravages of war and the oppression of the military; they had seen so many instances of punishment incurred by resistance to the actual possessors of power; they were divided and

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 571-578. Thurloe, i. 639, 641. Ludlow, ii. 40. The alteration in the representation, which had been proposed in the long parliament, was generally considered an improvement,--Clar. Hist. iii. 495.]

subdivided into so many parties, jealous and hateful of each other; that they readily acquiesced in any change which promised the return of tranquillity in the place of solicitude, danger, and misery. The protector, however, did not neglect the means of consolidating his own authority. Availing himself of the powers intrusted to him by the "instrument," he gave the chief commands in the army to men in whom he could confide; quartered the troops in the manner best calculated to put down any insurrection; and, among the multitude of ordinances which he published, was careful to repeal the acts enforcing the Engagement; to forbid all meetings on racecourses or at cockpits, to explain what offences should be deemed treason against his government; and to establish a high court of justice for the trial of those who might be charged with such offences.

He could not, however, be ignorant that, even among the former companions of his fortunes, the men who had fought and bled by his side, there were several who, much as they revered the general, looked on the protector with the most cordial abhorrence.[a] They were stubborn, unbending republicans, partly from political, partly from religious, principle. To them he affected to unbosom himself without reserve. He was still, he protested, the same humble individual whom they had formerly known him. Had he consulted his own feelings, "he would rather have taken the staff of a shepherd" than the dignity of protector. Necessity had imposed the office upon him; he had sacrificed his own happiness to preserve his countrymen from anarchy and ruin; and, as he now bore the burden with reluctance, he would lay it down with joy, the moment he could do so with safety to

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654.]

the nation. But this language made few proselytes. They had too often already been the dupes of his hypocrisy, the victims of their own credulity; they scrupled not, both in public companies, and from the pulpit, to pronounce him "a dissembling perjured villain;" and they openly threatened him with "a worse fate than had befallen the last tyrant." If it was necessary to silence these declaimers, it was also dangerous to treat them with severity. He proceeded with caution, and modified his displeasure by circumstances. Some he removed from their commissions in the army and their ministry in the church; others he did not permit to go at large, till they had given security for their subsequent behaviour; and those who proved less tractable, or appeared more dangerous, he incarcerated in the Tower. Among the last were Harrison, formerly his fellow-labourer in the dissolution of the long parliament, now his most implacable enemy; and Feakes and Powell, the Anabaptist preachers, who had braved his resentment during the last parliament.[a] Symson, their colleague, shared their imprisonment, but procured his liberty[b] by submission.[1]

To the royalists, as he feared them less, he showed less forbearance. Charles, who still resided in Paris, maintained a constant correspondence with the friends of his family in England, for the twofold purpose of preserving a party ready to take advantage of any revolution in his favour, and of deriving from their loyalty advances of money for his own support and that of his followers. Among the agents whom he employed, were men who betrayed his secrets, or pretended

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 641, 642; ii. 67, 68. Whitelock, 580, 582, 596. Ludlow, ii. 47.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. Feb. 30.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1654. July 26.]

secrets, to his enemies,[1] or who seduced his adherents into imaginary plots, that by the discovery they might earn the gratitude of the protector. Of the latter class was an individual named Henshaw, who had repaired to Paris, and been refused what he solicited, admission to the royal presence. On his return, he detailed to certain royalists a plan by which the protector might be assassinated on his way to Hampton Court, the guards at Whitehall overpowered, the town surprised, and the royal exile proclaimed. Men were found to listen to his suggestions; and when a sufficient number were entangled in the toil, forty were apprehended[a] and examined. Of these, many consented to give evidence; three were selected[b] for trial before the high court of justice. Fox, one of the three, pleaded guilty, and thus, by giving countenance to the evidence of Henshaw, deserved and obtained[c] his pardon. Vowell, a schoolmaster, and Gerard, a young gentleman two-and-twenty years of age, received[d] judgment of death. The first suffered on the gallows, glorying that he died a martyr in the cause of royalty. Gerard, before he was beheaded, protested in the strongest terms that, though he had heard, he had never approved of the design.[2] In the depositions, it was pretended that Charles had given his consent to the assassination of the protector.

[Footnote 1: Clarendon informs Nicholas (June 12), that in reality no one secret had been betrayed or discovered.--Clar. Papers, iii. 247. But this is doubtful; for Willis, one of the committee called "the sealed knot," who was imprisoned, but discharged in September (Perfect Account, No. 194), proved afterwards a traitor.]

[Footnote 2: State Trials, v. 517-540. Thurloe, ii. 416, 446, 447. Whitelock, 591, 593, 593. Henshaw was not produced on the trial. It was pretended that he had escaped. But we learn from Thurloe that he was safe in the Tower, and so Gerard suspected in his speech on the scaffold.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. May 24.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1654. June 30.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1654. July 6.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1654. July 10.]

Though Cromwell professed to disbelieve the charge, yet as a measure of self-defence he threatened the exiled prince that, if any such attempt were encouraged, he should have recourse to retaliation, and, at the same time, intimated that it would be no difficult matter for him to execute his threat.[1]

On the same scaffold, but an hour later, perished a foreign nobleman, only nineteen years old, Don Pantaleon Sa, brother to Guimaraes, the Portuguese ambassador. Six months before, he and Gerard, whose execution we have just noticed, had quarrelled[a] in the New Exchange. Pantaleon, the next evening,[b] repaired to the same place with a body of armed followers; a fray ensued; Greenway, a person unconcerned in the dispute, was killed by accident or mistake; and the Portuguese fled to the house of the ambassador, whence they were conducted to prison by the military. The people, taking up the affair as a national quarrel, loudly demanded the blood of the reputed murderers. On behalf of Pantaleon it was argued: 1. That he was an ambassador, and therefore answerable to no one but his master; 2. That he was a person attached to the embassy, and therefore covered by the privilege of his principal. But the

[Footnote 1: Cromwell did not give credit to the plots for murdering him.--Thurloe, ii. 512, 533. Clarendon writes thus on the subject to his friend Nicholas: "I do assure you upon my credit, I do not know, and upon my confidence, the king does not, of any such design. Many wild, foolish persons propose wild things to the king, which he civilly discountenances, and then they and their friends brag what they hear, or could do; and, no doubt, in some such noble rage that hath now fallen out which they talk so much of at London, and by which many honest men are in prison, of which whole matter the king knows no more than secretary Nicholas doth."--Clar. Papers, iii. 247. See, however, the account of Sexby's plot in the next chapter.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Nov. 21.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1653. Nov. 22.]

instrument which he produced in proof of the first allegation was no more than a written promise that he should succeed his brother in-office; and in reply to the second, it was maintained[a] that the privilege of an ambassador, whatever it might be, was personal, and did not extend to the individuals in his suite. At the bar, after several refusals, he was induced by the threat of the _peine forte et dure_ to plead not guilty; and his demand of counsel, on account of his ignorance of English law, was rejected, on the ground that the court was "of counsel equal to the prisoner and the commonwealth." He was found guilty, and condemned, with four of his associates. To three of these the protector granted a pardon; but no entreaties of the several ambassadors could prevail in favour of Pantaleon. He was sacrificed, if we believe one of them, to the clamour of the people, whose feelings were so excited, that when his head fell on the scaffold,[b] the spectators proclaimed their joy by the most savage yells of exultation.[1] It was the very day on which his brother, perhaps to propitiate the protector, had signed the treaty between the two nations.

These executions had been preceded by one of a very different description. Colonel Worsley had apprehended a Catholic clergyman, of the name of Southworth, who, thirty-seven years before, had been convicted at Lancaster, and sent into banishment. The old man (he had passed his seventy-second year),

[Footnote 1: See in State Trials, v. 461-518, a numerous collection of authorities and opinions respecting this case. Also ibid. 536. That Pantaleon and his friends were armed, cannot be denied: was it for revenge? So it would appear from the relation in Somers's Tracts, iii. 65; Whitelock, 569; and State Trials, v. 482. Was it solely for defence? Such is the evidence of Metham (Thurloe, ii. 222), and the assertion of Pantaleon at his death.--Whitelock, ii. 595.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. July 5.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1654. July 10.]

at his arraignment, pleaded that he had taken orders in the church of Rome, but was innocent of any treason. The recorder advised him to withdraw his plea, and gave him four hours for consideration. But Southworth still owned that he was a Catholic and in orders; judgment of death was pronounced; and the protector, notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of the French and Spanish ambassadors, resolved that he should suffer. It was not that Cromwell approved of sanguinary punishments in matters of religion, but that he had no objection to purchase the good-will of the godly by shedding the blood of a priest. The[a] fate of this venerable man[a] excited the sympathy of the higher classes. Two hundred carriages and a crowd of horsemen followed the hurdle on which he was drawn to the place of execution. On the scaffold, he spoke with satisfaction of the manner of his death, but at the same time pointed out the inconsistency of the men who pretended to have taken up arms for liberty of conscience, and yet shed the blood of those who differed from them in religious opinions. He suffered the usual punishment of traitors.[1]

The intelligence of the late revolution had been received by the military in Ireland and Scotland with open murmurs on the part of some, and a suspicious acquiescence on that of others. In Ireland, Fleetwood knew not how to reconcile the conduct of his father-in-law with his own principles, and expressed a wish to resign the government of the island; Ludlow and Jones, both stanch republicans, looked on the protector as a hypocrite and an apostate, and though the latter was more cautious in his language, the

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, ii. 406. Whitelock, 592. Challoner, ii. 354. Knaresborough's Collections, MS.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654 June 23.]

former openly refused to act as civil commissioner under the new constitution; and in most of the garrisons several of the principal officers made no secret of their dissatisfaction: in one case they even drew up a remonstrance against "the government by a single person." But Cromwell averted the storm which threatened him, by his prudence and firmness. He sent his son Henry on a visit to Fleetwood, that he might learn the true disposition of the military; the more formidable of his opponents were silently withdrawn to England; and several of the others found themselves suddenly but successively deprived of their commands. In most cases interest proved more powerful than principle; and it was observed that out of the numbers, who at first crowded to the Anabaptist conventicle at Dublin as a profession of their political creed, almost all who had any thing to lose, gradually abandoned it for the more courtly places of worship. Even the Anabaptists themselves learned to believe that the ambition of a private individual could not defeat the designs of the Lord, and that it was better for men to retain their situations under the protector, than, by abandoning them, to deprive themselves of the means of promoting the service of God, and of hastening the reign of Christ upon earth.[1]