STITUTIONAL EXPERIMENTS 
 
 164-9-1660 
 
 ED WA R D JENKS
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 xTJ. ijw
 
 THE 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL EXPERIMENTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COMMONWEALTH.
 
 HonDon: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, 
 
 CAMBEIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, 
 
 AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 : DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. 
 tfl: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
 
 Stetoriral <$$a$, ^o, III* 
 
 THE 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL EXPEEIMENTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 A STUDY OF THE YEARS 16491660. 
 
 BY 
 EDWARD JENKS, B.A., LL.B., 
 
 OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER AT LAW ; 
 
 FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; 
 
 PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF LAW IN THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE. 
 
 THIRL WALL DISSERTATION, 1889. 
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 1890 
 
 [All Eights reserved.]
 
 PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
 
 TO 
 
 OSCAR BROWNING 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MANY KINDNESSES 
 
 J.
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 THE object of this Essay is simply to state in an 
 impartial and somewhat detailed way the various 
 changes which the machinery of Government in 
 England experienced between the death of Charles I. 
 and the Restoration. I believe that in a careful study 
 of that period there will be found much material for 
 reflection, and that a closer examination of it will 
 shew that the Commonwealth was not, as it is 
 often treated, a sporadic and eccentric growth, but 
 a natural step in the developement of English 
 political ideas. Owing to limitations imposed by 
 circumstances, I have been compelled to limit my 
 study mainly to the sphere of Central Government. 
 
 The materials which have been used are chiefly 
 the ordinary sources of information, which are well 
 known. It is hard to imagine that we shall ever 
 have better authorities for the period than White- 
 locke, Clarendon, and Thurloe. But the recent 
 completion of the Calendar of the Interregnum 
 State Papers has rendered public a mass of material 
 which, if it be not entirely new, is most useful as a 
 check upon the Commons Journals (evidently in 
 some cases tampered with) and the contemporary
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 historians 1 . And I have also had access to a large 
 miscellaneous collection of pamphlets, mainly of 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which has 
 formed a part of the contents of the present Library 
 of the Middle Temple ever since its completion. 
 These tracts have been bound together, apparently, 
 without any regard to chronology, authorship, or 
 subject-matter, and it has not been easy, even with 
 the unfailing and most courteous assistance of the 
 Librarian, to work out any definite results from the 
 process of examination. Nevertheless, it is hoped 
 that the perusal, however hasty, of 150 volumes of 
 contemporaneous pamphlet literature, cannot have 
 failed to reveal, to a certain extent, the spirit and 
 character of the period 2 . 
 
 I desire to express my sincere thanks to Mr John 
 Hutchinson, the Librarian of the Middle Temple, 
 for his boundless patience and kindness in answering 
 questions respecting the Temple pamphlets, and also 
 to Professor Henry Laurie of Melbourne University, 
 for his assistance in reading over the proof-sheets. 
 
 In deprecation of clerical errors in references, I 
 desire also to state that the proofs of the following 
 pages have been looked over in Melbourne, where it 
 is not always possible to obtain access to seventeenth 
 century authorities. 
 
 1 I have ventured to number the volumes of the Calendar, 
 beginning with the first of the Interregnum Series. The dates 
 endorsed on the Eecord Office covers are very misleading guides. 
 
 - The Temple pamphlets are referred to in the foot-notes as 
 " T. P.," with the number and page of the volume.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Republic 25 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 The Protectorate 67 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Year of Anarchy 127
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE REGULATIONS FOR 
 THE THIRLWALL PRIZE. 
 
 " There shall be established in the University a 
 prize, called the ' Thirlwall Prize/ to be awarded for 
 dissertations involving original historical research." 
 
 "The prize shall be open to members of the 
 University who, at the time when their dissertations 
 are sent in, have been admitted to a degree, and are 
 of not more than four years' standing from admission 
 to their first degree." 
 
 " Those dissertations which the adjudicators de- 
 clare to be deserving of publication shall be published 
 by the University singly or in combination, in an 
 uniform series, at the expense of the fund, under 
 such conditions as the Syndics of the University 
 Press shall from time to time determine,"
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THERE has been a tendency, both in the works of The im- 
 historians and in popular estimation, to underrate P f r ^ ce 
 the importance of the Commonwealth period. Men Common- 
 have been struck by the glaring fact that, after all per i d 
 the agitation and attempted reforms of army and underrated 
 parliament, the Stuarts returned with a prerogative opinion, 
 unimpaired, in theory at least, if not actually strength- 
 ened. The question upon which the Civil War had 
 been nominally begun was, in 1661, with all constitu- 
 tional solemnity, decided in favour of the Crown. A 
 restored hierarchy, supported not merely by Court 
 influence, but by the terrible strength of popular pre- 
 judice, proceeded to bind Dissent in legal fetters more 
 galling even than those which it had escaped by the 
 fall of Laud. The shame of Rochelle and Cadiz was 
 outshamed by the disgrace of the Treaty of Dover 
 and the impeachment of Danby. And, apparently, 
 not one of the political reforms with which the air 
 for twenty years had been thick was secured. Strafford 
 and " Thorough " had been swept away, only to be 
 replaced by the still more dangerous systems of 
 Clarendon and the Cabal. 
 
 J. 1
 
 2 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 and also In the face of these facts it is not surprising to 
 
 by histo- n( j j.].^ p p u ] ar opinion regards the Commonwealth 
 period as an era of fruitless pedantry. But historians 
 of repute have sanctioned the popular view. Hallam 
 devotes half a chapter to the period between the 
 death of Charles and the Restoration. Professor 
 Gneist dismisses the struggles of the Commonwealth 
 statesmen in a few lines, with the disparaging remark 
 that " as far as any constitutional advancement of 
 England is concerned, the Commonwealth remained 
 just as fruitless as it was for all the institutions of 
 ' self-government 1 .' " 
 
 It may then be not merely a platitude for me to 
 state at once why I consider the Commonwealth 
 period to have been of first-rate importance in the 
 history of constitutional development. 
 
 Two great Independently of the so-called " moral " effects of 
 results tn e Civil War and the interregnum, which, however, 
 'period , were by no means trifling, two great palpable results 
 
 followed from the period. 
 
 (l)assump- I n the nrs * i place the Parliament learnt the 
 tionby mysteries of government. No other explanation is 
 mentofthe adequate to account for the ease with which the 
 tavern- * Ministerial government of William and Anne glided, 
 ment, on the passing of the Septennial Act, into the Parlia- 
 mentary government of the first two Georges. On 
 the face of it, nothing could be more absurd than to 
 suppose the Parliament of the eighteenth century 
 capable of conducting the business of the country. 
 Historically, with one exceptional period, the claim 
 was unfounded. No one will pretend that the 
 1 The English Parliament (Shee's translation), p. 237.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 Parliaments of the Middle Ages took any direct 
 part in the government. Their utmost ambition 
 (rarely gratified) extended to some voice in the 
 appointment of Ministers, and their constitutional 
 right consisted only of criticism, enforced by finance 
 control and the occasional impeachment of the king's 
 advisers. Even this right of impeachment fell into 
 abeyance under the Tudors, and the substitution for 
 it of bills of attainder was an idle form, for bills of 
 attainder were, practically, the weapons, not of the 
 Parliament, but of the Crown. 
 
 Still less in the Tudor period was the business 
 of the country in the hands of Parliament. Henry 
 VIII. and Elizabeth were the last persons to admit 
 such a theory. It was the King's Council and not 
 the Parliament which ruled England. The offshoots 
 of the Council, the Star-Chamber, the Court of High 
 Commission, the Councils of the North, of Ireland, 
 and of Wales, were the centres of public business. 
 The rebukes administered by Elizabeth to her most 
 loyal Parliaments on the rare occasions on which they 
 ventured to discuss matters of State, are too well 
 known to need special reference. And to this day it 
 is a matter of dispute whether Charles, in all his 
 tyranny, really violated the forms of the constitution. 
 It was his folly, not his illegality, which lost him the 
 kingdom. 
 
 But the Long Parliament changed all this. The 
 events of the Civil War, even while the result was 
 doubtful, played into the hands of the Parliament. 
 Whitehall was deserted, but Westminster was 
 thronged, and so the business of Whitehall trans- 
 
 12
 
 4 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 ferred itself to Westminster. No politician can 
 venture to disregard the importance of historic and 
 settled association. In theory the king could summon 
 Parliament to what place he chose, but in the eyes of 
 the nation the Parliament at Westminster was the 
 Parliament, the Parliament at Oxford a palpable sham 1 . 
 And so the House at Westminster, around which the 
 first opposition to the king had gathered, found it 
 possible to absorb one department of public business 
 after another. The difficulty of substituting collective 
 for personal control of the departments it solved by 
 the appointment of endless committees. There were 
 committees for the army and the navy, for finance, 
 for the plantations, for trade, and for religion. How 
 these committees worked we must enquire later on. 
 At present it is sufficient to point out that with its 
 most active members searching into, arranging, and 
 reporting upon every nook and corner of the State- 
 machinery, the House of Commons speedily learnt 
 the secrets of government. And that knowledge it 
 never lost. The corporate consciousness of a great 
 body like the House of Commons is superior to the 
 shocks of dissolutions and intermissions. Records, 
 traditions, recollections, survive, and are handed on 
 from one generation to another. That the House 
 took greedily to the business of government is 
 abundantly clear from the reluctance which it mani- 
 fested when called upon by Cromwell to resign it. 
 
 1 This seems also to have been the view of Charles himself. 
 He spoke of the Oxford assemblage as " one mongrel Parliament." 
 (Letter to the Queen, quoted in Gardiner, History of the Great 
 Civil War, n. 135.)
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 The sovereignty of the House of Commons as an 
 established fact, had to wait long for its realization. 
 As a possibility, it was settled by the departure of 
 the king from London in 1642. 
 
 But, secondly, the period was a storehouse of (2) the 
 political ideas. The outburst of pamphlet literature ^deni 
 which was the popular side of Elizabethan culture political 
 had spread from theology to politics. And in the 
 pamphlets of the period was mooted almost every 
 idea which has made a mark in the political world of 
 later days. The disestablishment of the church and 
 the removal of religious disabilities, a single-chamber 
 Republic, the sovereignty of the people, equal 
 electoral districts, female suffrage, the abolition of 
 rotten boroughs, the ballot, local government, law 
 reform, freedom of the press, freedom of trade, the 
 establishment of a national bank, are but a few of 
 the schemes advocated. That none of these schemes 
 were immediately realized is admitted, but it is 
 hardly necessary to insist upon the immense impor- 
 tance of such a crop of ideas, regarded as an element 
 in constitutional history. It may, however, be per- 
 missible to point out the extreme rarity of such 
 periods of fruitfulness. There is a saying attributed 
 to a great historian, that English Constitutional 
 History ceases with the reign of Edward I. It is 
 perhaps rather a bold way of putting the truth. But 
 the scarcity of political ideas in English popular 
 history since that date cannot fail to strike every one. 
 The period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth 
 is the great exception to the rule, and these years 
 have furnished the materials with which later gene-
 
 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Does the 
 year 1649 
 really 
 mark an 
 epoch ? 
 
 Yes. For 
 till the 
 execution 
 of the 
 
 rations have built. The thought of the Commonwealth 
 has become the history of Constitutional Monarchy. 
 There is a microcosm in politics as well as a macro- 
 cosm. And so it is that the apparent failure of the 
 Commonwealth politicians is only apparent, after 
 all. 
 
 With this apology for choice of subject we may 
 begin to consider the period. 
 
 There might be some question raised as to whether 
 the year 1649 really marks an epoch in history. The 
 king had ceased to govern, if not to reign, long 
 before his death. The House of Lords had dwindled 
 by slow degrees, till in December 1648 its average 
 attendance was a fraction over five 1 . Even before 
 the great Purge, the House of Commons, by expulsion 
 and death, had lost many of its members. The hier- 
 archy was gone. But the condition of things is too 
 uncertain to afford a satisfactory subject of analysis. 
 Till 1647 and the Second Civil War, it was really 
 impossible to say that the king would not return. 
 Even the treaty of Newport was popular with a 
 large number of influential men. The fine irony 
 with which the House of Commons voted supplies 
 to the king to be used against himself was not mere 
 pedantry. Till the autumn of 1648 the nominal 
 government of the country was in the hands of men 
 who wished to amend, not to sweep away, the old 
 constitution. 
 
 But with the execution of the king the irre- 
 vocable step was taken, and a new order began. If 
 only in self-defence, the regicides were bound to 
 1 Journals of House of Lords.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 form a new government, founded on revolutionary King the 
 principles, and entrusted to men pledged to the * "' 
 revolution. The statutes of the spring of 1649 doubtful. 
 cleave a great gulf between past and present. It 
 is in February 1649, therefore, that the new era 
 really begins, and we must attempt to draw some 
 picture of the constitution at that date. 
 
 The gaps in the fabric were many. The removal The Con- 
 of the king alone meant the rending asunder rather 
 than the decapitation of the constitution, for the ar v 
 Tudor policy had made the monarchy organic, and its V garance 
 overthrow paralyzed the body politic by destroying of the 
 many of its most active members. "The title of monarchy, 
 king," said one of the regicides, " is not only by an 
 original common consent, but that consent also 
 proved and confirmed, and the law fitted thereunto 
 and that fitted to the laws, by the experience and 
 industry of many ages, and many hundreds of years 
 together 1 ." So that the removal of the king's name 
 well-nigh produced a deadlock in the administrative 
 machinery, and the destruction of the organs of 
 royalty left a vast amount of business adrift. For the 
 with the Crown had gone the Councils the Star- CouncUs ' 
 Chamber, the Court of High Commission, the 
 Councils of the North and of Wales, and the Lord and the 
 Lieutenants of the Counties, leaving the justices of tenants. 
 the peace, whose duties the dissolution of the monas- Position 
 teries and the general policy of the Tudors had vastly 
 increased, in a state of nervous collapse. " Really a 
 justice of the peace shall from the most be wondered 
 at, as an owl, if he go but one step out of the ordinary 
 1 Somers Tracts, vi. 386.
 
 8 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 course of his fellow-justices," said Cromwell 1 in later 
 days, and his experience of country life was great. 
 The justices of the peace seem to have been docile 
 on the whole ", but not of much power. The nomi- 
 
 aM the nation of the Sheriffs was immediately taken in hand 
 by the House 3 , and a definite assertion of its claim 
 was registered two years later 4 . Over the various 
 municipal corporations, which had been a special 
 point of attack with Charles, Parliament also kept a 
 firm hand, never scrupling to interfere with elections 
 when it thought fit 5 , but generally allowing municipal 
 government to take its ordinary course. In spite of 
 some outbreaks, the corporations too seem to have 
 been tractable. 
 
 The Upper The disappearance, for it can hardly be called 
 abolition, of the Upper House of the Parliament 
 seems to have been very little felt. Probably the 
 House of Lords had been of small weight as a poli- 
 tical body since the Wars of the Roses. The havoc 
 caused by the Wars had been completed by the 
 Tudors, whose steady policy it had been to depress 
 the nobility, both as a body and as individuals, by 
 the employment of " base blood " in the Council and 
 by the chary bestowal of titles. The House of Lords 
 gained rather than lost by the Civil War. It re- 
 turned at the Restoration with an immensely in- 
 
 1 Somers Tracts, vi. p. 398. 
 
 2 See however Whitelock (ed. 1682), pp. 380 and 424. 
 
 3 Journals, Nov. 7, 1649. 
 
 4 Whitelock, 489. 
 
 5 The Lord Mayor of London was regularly presented for 
 approval to the House on his election. Whitelock, pp. 381, 461.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 creased power, which lasted almost till the changes 
 of 1832. 
 
 But the disappearance of the State clergy must The State 
 have been severely felt. Besides their great power rgy ' 
 in the Court of High Commission, the bishops held 
 the whole official machinery relative to the admini- 
 stration of testamentary matters, and to matrimonial 
 disputes, and, probably, also exercised jurisdiction in 
 many cases which would now be considered purely 
 secular. The parochial clergy, too, played an im- 
 portant part in the business of daily life, in the 
 celebration of marriages, in the registration of 
 marriages, births, and deaths, and in the relief of 
 the poor. The difficulties caused by their disap- 
 pearance were no small item of the troubles of the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 These were the most conspicuous gaps. What The re- 
 j o maininq 
 
 remained? material,. 
 
 Nominally, of course, the House of Commons. The 
 That is to say, of 505 members returned in 1640, commons 
 some 150, including " Recruiters," were recognised its 
 by the regicides as entitled to sit. As a matter of numbers - 
 fact the divisions during 1649 averaged about 50; in 
 the following year they were slightly larger. But 
 on special occasions their numbers considerably in- 
 creased. At the election of the Council of State in 
 February 1650 1 they were 86, on two similar occasions 
 in 1651, calls of the House produced 116* answers. 
 How the deficiency is accounted for it is difficult to 
 say exactly. An old pamphlet puts it thus 
 
 1 Journals, Feb. 11, 1650. 
 
 2 Journals, Feb. 7 and Nov. 24, 1651.
 
 10 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Signed the king's letter from Oxford 
 
 on Jan. 27, 1644 .... 119 
 
 Joined the king afterwards ... 23 
 
 Absent by leave . . . . . 34 
 
 Pride's Purge 140 
 
 316 1 
 
 These numbers, deducted from the 505 which 
 represented a full House of Commons at the end of 
 Charles' reign, leave a balance of 189. But there had 
 been, of course, many deaths among the supporters 
 of the Parliament, and many of the seats left vacant 
 by delinquency had been filled up at bye-elections, 
 notably in the year 1645 2 . Carlyle 3 gives a list of 
 845, as those who, under one title or another, had a 
 right to seats, at various times, in the Long Parlia- 
 ment. But this list evidently includes many dupli- 
 cates, occasioned by misnomers in the Journals and 
 other documents, and also the names of members 
 (such as the Earl of Pembroke, Fairfax, Rich, 
 Nevil,) who were elected after the death of the king. 
 Clarendon 4 says that the Rump at this date resolved 
 to readmit all members who would approve the 
 proceedings during the seclusion. But Whitelock, a 
 
 1 T. P. XLI. p. 128. The Parliamentary History does not agree 
 with these figures, and makes the numbers as follows 
 
 f Joined the king at Oxford. 173 
 
 Vol. n. pp. 599629 \ Secluded in December, 1648. 113 (in 
 I another place 143. Vol. in. p. 1249). 
 
 2 Parliamentary History, n. 598. 
 
 3 Cromwell's Letters and Speeches (Pop. edition), vol. in. 
 p. 244. 
 
 4 History, HI. 204.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 far better authority on such matters, relates 1 that an 
 Act was passed a few days after the king's death 
 excluding all those who had voted to proceed upon 
 the treaty of Newport, and though the Act is not to 
 be found in Scobell, Whitelock is confirmed by the 
 Journals 2 . On the 23rd February the House also 
 resolved to exclude all, except military officers, who 
 had been absent since the preceding 31st December 3 . 
 
 But it is necessary to have some notion not only 
 of the numbers, but of the methods and occupations 
 of the House. 
 
 The methods can be described in one word Pariia- 
 Committees. Everything that could not be disposed 
 of by the full House was referred to a committee. tees - 
 There were standing committees for advance of 
 money, for sequestrations, for compounding, for 
 plundered ministers, for indemnity, for sale of crown 
 lands, for the army, the Mint, the revenue, for 
 accounts, for obstructions, for Whitehall 4 . Whether 
 it was that the idea of personal responsibility was 
 repugnant to the House, or whether constitutional 
 deference shrank from the appointment of indi- 
 vidual officials during the king's life, certain it is 
 that the House preferred this curiously impersonal 
 method of doing business. It appears to have been 
 made a matter of reproach by the enemies of the 
 Parliament, for we find Milton, in 1651, defending it 
 
 1 Memorials, 370. 
 
 ' Journals. Resolution of Feb. 3, 1649, expunged on Feb. 22, 
 1660. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 377. Journals. 
 
 4 Cal. State Papers. Interregnum, vol. r. Introd. pp. i. xn.
 
 12 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 in the words "the thing is ancient, though the 
 name may be new 1 ." The truth was rather the 
 other way. The practice of appointing committees 
 is almost as old as Parliament itself, but the appoint- 
 ment of committees for executive purposes was the 
 invention of the seventeenth century, and was indeed 
 only possible in a period of revolution. Whatever 
 the authority for it, however, it remains certain that 
 it was the one method of the Long Parliament. 
 
 Occupa- The nature of the business undertaken by the 
 
 House will have appeared from the enumeration of 
 a few of its committees. Roughly speaking, it 
 undertook the whole business of state. Besides its 
 constitutional and legitimate duty, the raising and 
 distributing of money, it controlled (nominally) the 
 army, supervised the administration of justice, kept 
 up some show of intercourse with foreign states, 
 appointed Sheriffs and ministers of religion, and 
 acted as custos morum of the kingdom, and general 
 
 Its sense of referee on all matters of dispute. Its sense of 
 personal dignity was naturally great. It was more 
 penal to speak ill of a Member of Parliament (not 
 secluded) than to commit a highway robbery 
 " Yourself is now the greatest man in England," said 
 Sir Arthur Haselrig to Chaloner Chute 2 , the Speaker 
 of Richard's Parliament, and Haselrig represented, 
 perhaps better than any man, the sense of the 
 Parliament of 1649. The feeling is not to be 
 wondered at. In its own view the House of Commons 
 
 1 Defence of the People of England. Prose works, ed. 1698, 
 vol. n. 562. 
 
 2 Burton's Diary, in. 18.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 had successfully conducted the revolution, and to the 
 last its most prominent members clung to this view. 
 But it was unfortunate, for it made the Rump 
 thoroughly unpopular. 
 
 There was another very curious point. As a its 
 matter of fact, the House had swallowed all its pea 
 formulas in the most practical way. But it never 
 would acknowledge the fact. With a constitutional 
 pedantry almost verging on insanity, the leading 
 members of the House contended that, as a body, 
 they were, by strictest right, the sole constitutional 
 sovereign of England. The abolition of episcopacy 
 and the House of Lords, the execution of the king, 
 nay, what is more extraordinary, the mutilation of the 
 House itself by the army, all seemed to the Rump to 
 be acts of constitutional legality. Here and there an 
 obscure individual hinted at the true state of the 
 case. " The breaking of the laws has preserved your 
 being," said Mr Shirley to the House in 1658. "If 
 extraordinary measures had not sometimes been 
 taken, we had not been here at this day 1 ." But the 
 House itself, and its most characteristic members, 
 would never admit this palpable fact. Nothing can 
 be more astounding to the unimaginative reader than 
 the way in which Ludlow, for instance, contends for 
 the absolute unassailability of the Parliament. The 
 House cannot be dissolved without its own consent, 
 says he, relying (presumably) upon the Perpetuation 
 Act of 1641. The whole of the proceedings between 
 1653 and 1659 he regards as idle illegalities, hardly 
 worth considering. The expulsion of the 140 in 
 1 Burton, iv. 273.
 
 14 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 1648 is legal ; but the expulsion of the 160 in 1653 
 is a mere outrage. 
 
 These facts will give us an idea, sufficient for 
 present purposes, of the House of Commons in 1649. 
 It was a body consisting of a minority section of a 
 representative assembly, forced by circumstances into 
 an entirely novel position, unconstitutional to the last 
 degree, but firmly convinced of its legality, and re- 
 solved to retain its preeminence at all hazards. 
 
 The House of Commons ostensibly conducted the 
 business of the country. But there was another 
 body existing, of first rate, though unadmitted con- 
 stitutional importance. 
 
 The army. The army of the Commonwealth was not alto- 
 gether such an unique thing as some historians have 
 imagined. But it is a thing sufficiently interesting 
 and significant to warrant grave attention. 
 
 The importance of the New Model lay in the fact 
 that it was at once military and political. It was a 
 citizen army with a professional training, standing 
 midway in history between the feudal levies of old 
 time, and the professional armies of modern days. 
 As the feudal nobles at the call of their suzerain 
 summoned their followers and marched to battle, so 
 the Puritan chiefs, at the call of Cromwell, had 
 gathered their congregations and rallied round Fair- 
 fax at Windsor. But they did not, like the feudal 
 levies, disband at the close of the forty days of service. 
 They remained under arms, and gradually welded 
 into a compact and irresistible mass. It was they, 
 and not the Parliament, who had won the victory. 
 " We all know that 'twas not a new Oath but a new
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 model'd Army that by God's most gratious hand first 
 gave check to the King's prosperity," wrote Parker 
 in 1651 \ As was inevitable, the conquest had been 
 given to those who had most greatly dared. The 
 four pillars of the Commonwealth were Naseby, 
 Preston, Dunbar, and Worcester, and of them two 
 had already been reared by the army. 
 
 The king of the army was, of course, Cromwell. 
 It was he who had created it, by the Self-denying 
 Ordinance and the New-Model plan 2 . Cromwell was 
 only king, Fairfax was king's cloak, but the mighty 
 shout that rose from the camp at Guilsborough, when 
 the Lieutenant-General rode in at the head of the 
 six hundred on the eve of Naseby fight 3 , showed 
 that the army at least realized the facts. From 
 that moment Cromwell was king of England. 
 
 But the army had more than a king. It was Organiza- 
 a body organized to deliberate and decide, as well as ^L * le 
 to fight. The great political idea of the Aryan race, 
 the bivalve of senate and assembly, had found ex- 
 pression there, and was regarded as a precious 
 possession. A council of superior officers and an The 
 assembly of " Adjutators" or "Agitators," consisting C 
 of two delegates elected by each troop, represented T 
 the political thought of the army, and jealously was A 
 any interference with this constitution resented 4 , tators. 
 
 1 Scotland's Holy War. T. P. xxiv. 502. 
 
 2 I do not mean to assert that the original idea belonged to 
 Cromwell ; but it was he who first made it practical. 
 
 3 Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, p. 35. Cf. A more exact and perfect 
 relation, quoted by Gardiner, n. 205. 
 
 4 Cf. Whitelock, 378 and 387. And The Hunting of the Foxes 
 (Somers Tracts, vi. 45).
 
 16 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Mr Harrison suggests that in 1647 the army repre- 
 sents the House of Commons of the present day, the 
 Parliament occupying the position of the present 
 House of Lords 1 . The parallel will read equally 
 well the other way. The Parliament of 1649 is 
 the discussing, financial, ostentatious body, and the 
 army the body which takes little apparent share in 
 business, but which keeps an eye on the proceedings 
 of Parliament, and, if necessary, interposes its veto. 
 Later on, when the expiry of the Self-denying 
 Ordinance has restored the army chiefs to their 
 places in the House, the Council of officers becomes 
 the Cabinet of modern times, the union of the 
 executive and deliberative powers. 
 
 But to return to the army. Besides having its 
 Council and Assembly, it exercises judicial functions 2 , 
 it treats with foreign powers 3 , it has permanent 
 officials, a secretary 4 and a printer 6 . "Behold the 
 army of Israel become a commonwealth, and the 
 commonwealth of England become an army 6 /' writes 
 Harrington a few years' later, and his ideal is 
 doubtless the New Model. It is a little State in 
 itself, an imperium in imperio, prepared for any 
 emergency, and manifesting a dignity and a capacity 
 for self-restraint which are in striking contrast with 
 the frothiness and excitability of Parliament, and 
 which are born of a consciousness of merit proved 
 
 1 Cromwell, p. 114 (" Twelve English Statesmen " series). 
 
 2 Whitelock, 494. 
 
 3 e.g. with the Scotch, and the Parliament. 
 
 4 Kushworth. 
 
 5 Henry Hills. 
 
 6 Oceana, p. 101.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 and sufferings undergone. While the members of 
 the House had been sitting comfortably at West- 
 minster, voting and confiscating, and, if report spoke 
 truly, lining their own pockets with the spoils of the 
 Commonwealth, the army had been on the field of 
 battle, often ill fed and clothed, often unsheltered, 
 pouring out its blood for the sake of the Cause. 
 The army contained the natural aristocracy of the 
 nation, the strongest, most enduring, most self- 
 denying, broadest-minded men in England. Had 
 its members taken the royalist estates in kind 
 as payment of their arrears, with condition of 
 liability to future service, dissolved the Parliament, 
 and left Cromwell and the Council of officers to 
 govern for a few years till the country had settled 
 down and become once more fit for an election, 
 they would have done nothing more than by the 
 laws of war they were entitled to do, the revolution 
 would have consummated itself naturally, and the 
 financial question which was the bugbear of the 
 day would have disappeared. As a matter of fact, 
 this was what was done piecemeal during the 
 Commonwealth period, but the precious moment had 
 been lost, and was never recovered. 
 
 These then were the two great organs of State 
 at the beginning of the year 1649 ; the Parlia- 
 ment, ostentatious but weak, the army, obscure but 
 strong. Neither was the sovereign body, both were 
 sovereign bodies. The case was a standing refu- 
 tation of Hobbes' dogma 1 , so tortured and magni- 
 fied by Austin, that in every state there must be 
 1 Leviathan, cap. xvn. 
 
 J. 2
 
 18 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 one power supreme upon all points and indivisible 
 in exercise. It is true that if duties are to be 
 undertaken by the state there must be a court of 
 final appeal for every one of the matters involved by 
 them. But, as Bagehot has pointed out, this court 
 need not be the same for all points. In 1649 the 
 nation would probably have obeyed the decision of 
 the Parliament on all questions of finance. On all 
 matters of general policy it would have obeyed the 
 army. And on matters of religion it would have 
 obeyed no one. Therefore it was hopeless to attempt 
 a settlement of the religious question. And so it 
 proved. 
 
 Other But besides these two well defined and prominent 
 
 organisms, institutions there were other incipient organs which 
 The only wanted opportunity to develope. A revolution 
 
 Churches. ^^{^ was largely due to theological differences 
 naturally produced a crop of religious organizations, 
 which occasionally threatened to be a formidable diffi- 
 culty. Fortunately for the Parliament, the scheme 
 of a Presbyterian establishment fell through, for had 
 it taken root and flourished, the General Assembly 
 would have proved, as in Scotland, a powerful rival 
 to the secular authority. But though circumstances 
 had rendered Presbyterianism weak, many a "very 
 sweet society of an Independent Church 1 " felt itself 
 a power in politics. The use made of the Indepen- 
 dent congregations by the Protector in summoning 
 the Little Parliament is notorious. Later on, the vol- 
 umes of Thurloe shew with what anxiety he watched 
 the action of his quondam supporters. And though, 
 1 Lambert loquitur. Burton, i. 33.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 as the motive forces of the English revolution were 
 
 religious and political, not social, we should not 
 
 expect to find any social bodies equalling in influence 
 
 the Jacobins and the Cordeliers of the French culbute, 
 
 yet the existence of the " Rota " and " Calves-Head 1M The Clubs - 
 
 Clubs, together with the nascent societies of " Dig- The 
 
 idealists. 
 
 gers " and Fifth-Monarchy men, proves the extreme 
 readiness with which, in a revolution epoch, all ideas 
 find expression and welcome. To these spontaneous 
 organizations we must add the remnants of the war- 
 machinery, such as the Committees of the Eastern Commit- 
 Counties Association 2 , with their deputy-lieutenants, counties. 
 and the local committees for sequestration and ap- 
 proval of ministers. In the period before us most of 
 these germs were a source of danger to the state, but 
 it is possible that they might have been used as 
 instruments by a sympathetic and skilful govern- 
 ment. 
 
 These were some of the materials with which the Other 
 fabric of state was to be rebuilt. What were the w 
 nature of the soil and the atmospheric conditions ? 
 
 It is usual to represent the nation at this time The Sects. 
 as split up into an infinite number of sects and 
 factions. Sects and factions there were doubtless, in 
 numbers : episcopalians, presbyterians, independents, 
 anabaptists, Fifth-Monarchy men, royalists, republi- 
 cans, levellers and anarchists. But I question whether Their 
 the extent of this variety is not overestimated. 
 
 do not pretend to an exact knowledge of figures, over- 
 
 estimated. 
 
 1 See the curious Secret History of the Calves-Head Club 
 published (5th edition) in 1705. 
 
 2 See lists in Carlyle, in. 265. 
 
 22
 
 20 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 perhaps no such knowledge could now be obtained, 
 but I should think that an estimate of one hundred 
 thousand would amply cover all the "active citizens" 
 of any given moment, all the men who were prepared 
 to sacrifice or had sacrificed willingly anything on 
 any side of the controversy. These active citizens 
 are generally divided by contemporary estimate into 
 three important bodies, with a number of small 
 outlying detachments. The Presbyterians have the 
 "silent power," the divines, the lawyers, and the 
 interest of the nobility and gentry ; they are the 
 Girondins, in fact, of the day. The Independents, 
 supported by army and Parliament, have the military 
 and fiscal strength, but the very exercise of that 
 strength renders them unpopular. And the royalists, 
 poor, disjointed, and severely watched, have no 
 strength at all 1 . " The Independent," says another 
 account, "groundeth his strength upon the Army, 
 which if he can keepe up, he hopes to give the Law 
 to all, and to produce that great Chymsera, Liberty 
 of Conscience. The Presbyterians have three pillars 
 to support them. 1. The City. 2. Poyntz's 
 supernumerarie forces in the North. And in the 
 west (under colour of sending men for Ireland) they 
 keepe upon free quarter and pay of the country, 
 many supernumerarie Regiments and Troops, most 
 Cavaliers 2 ." But underneath these factions there 
 
 1 See letter of Col. H. Price. C. S. P. n. 63. 
 
 2 The Hysteric of the Tico Juntos. T. P. v. 90. The date is 
 torn out, and the pamphlet is a reprint of the Eestoration, but 
 from internal evidence it seems to have been written between 
 May 21, 1647, and the king's death.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 probably lay a huge mass of solid indifference, anx- 
 ious only for settled government, and without interest 
 in principles. It seems impossible otherwise to 
 account for the docility with which the later kalei- 
 doscopic changes of government were received. No 
 sooner does a change announce itself than shoals of 
 loyal addresses are presented to its inaugurators, only 
 to be repeated in favour of the inaugurators of the 
 next change. The general public loved a show, and 
 hated taxes. Beyond this it was largely indifferent. 
 It lined the roads to see the victor of Worcester 
 come back in triumph. When the victim of Worces- 
 ter in his turn came back triumphant, it went mad 
 with delight. It is probable that the popular his- 
 torical imagination greatly exaggerates the imme- 
 diate effects of revolutions. The theatres in Paris 
 were open as usual during the Terror. The diary Evelyn's 
 of John Evelyn shews us that it was possible for an 
 active and wealthy royalist to buy and sell land, 
 attend the ministrations of episcopalian clergy, and 
 flit to and fro between England and the exiled 
 Court, without molestation from the government of 
 Cromwell If my estimate be at all correct, one 
 hundred thousand agitators out of a population of 
 five millions, one man in fifty, leaves a substantial 
 foundation of solid earth below the shifting sands. 
 
 To close this long introduction, I shall venture, 
 at the risk of being accused of making discursive 
 remarks, to point out two features of the mental side 
 of the period " atmospheric conditions " I have 
 called them which seem to me important towards 
 understanding it.
 
 22 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Pedantry One is the pedantry of the time. The sweet 
 of the age. v ^ Qur of t j ie Elizabethan literature, the tone of 
 Spenser, Shakspere, and Marlowe, is not found in 
 the Puritan age. We have the sweetness without 
 the vigour, in Herbert, Herrick, and Lovelace, and 
 the vigour without the sweetness, in Milton and 
 Prynne. Hobbes. Few would deny the pedantry of Prynne, 
 Selden. Selden, and Spelman, but in the greater writers, in 
 Hairing- Harrington, and even in Hobbes and Milton, though 
 t- in them good sense rises triumphant over pedantry, 
 
 Milton. the baser element is to be found. And this quality 
 was a real source of difficulty in the task which lay 
 before the statesmen of 1649. You could not get a 
 man like Prynne to see that practical necessities 
 must sometimes override constitutional forms. Un- 
 less he could have a revolution according to black- 
 letter precedent he would not have one at all. He 
 was not possible, he was less possible even than such 
 Sir a man as Sir Thomas Browne, for the author of the 
 
 Browne. Religio Medici stayed quietly at home in Norwich 
 and practised the art of healing, whilst Prynne went 
 abroad and practised the art of stirring up strife. 
 And Pride's Purge, though it banished Prynne from 
 the Parliament, did not banish pedantry. It left 
 men who in subsequent Parliaments debated for 
 days whether they should "recognize," "agnize," 
 " cognize," or " decognize " the Protector, men like 
 Sir Sir W. Strickland, who argued that " every man was 
 
 strick b rn with a negative in his mouth" as to taxation 1 , 
 land. men like Robinson, who introduced a bill " to abolish 
 Zobinson. the SU pe rs tition of Christmas Day," saying " We are, 
 
 1 Burton, i. 347.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 I doubt, returning to Popery 1 ," men like Sir Arthur Sir 
 Haselrig, who cheerfully suggested that " it may very 
 
 well be a two months debate," as to whether the 
 second chamber should be addressed as " the Lords " 
 or as "the other House," and who hoped that "no man 
 should be debarred of speaking his mind freely, and 
 as often as he pleased, in a business of this great 
 weight and importance 2 ." It was much the same 
 when the Parliament was discussing fundamental 
 matters. " Much more was said on both sides, as to 
 the conveniences and inconveniences of either govern- 
 ment, and it was disputed as if they had been in the 
 schools, where each man had liberty to propose his 
 own Utopia, and to frame commonwealths according 
 to his own fancy 3 ." Sir Oliver Fleming was a man Sir Oliver 
 after the Parliament's own heart, and he produced as 
 a triumph of official etiquette an address from the 
 Burgomasters and Senators of Hamburgh with the 
 following superscription : Illustrissimis, Excellentis- 
 simis, Nobilissimis ac Magnificis Dominis, Dominis 
 Celsissimce Domus Parliamenti in Anglid Ordinibus, 
 Dominis Nostris Observandissimis. Which super- 
 scription was solemnly read aloud in the House, 
 and, apparently, gave great satisfaction 4 . 
 
 Finally I notice the non-social character of the The revo- 
 revolution. With the small exception of the Level- 
 lers and a few like-minded individuals, before noticed, 
 there were none who proposed to alter the existing 
 order of society. Puritanism, qua Puritanism, had no 
 quarrel with it. Cromwell, the incarnation of Puri- 
 
 1 Burton, i. 229. 2 Burton, n. 393, 394. 
 
 3 Goddard. In Burton, i. xxxi. * Journals, Aug. 3, 1649.
 
 24 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 tanism, was bent on preserving it. " A nobleman, a 
 gentleman, a yeoman," said he, in often-quoted words, 
 " that is a good interest of the Nation and a great 
 one 1 ." The peers who adopted the Parliament cause 
 retained their titles even in the House of Commons. 
 Vane and Haselrig were large landowners. And the 
 sternest of the Republicans, Scot, Nevil, and Ludlow, 
 confined their republicanism strictly to politics. As 
 a consequence, though there was fearful bloodshed, 
 there was little bloodthirstiness, and therefore always 
 a possibility of reconciliation. That the number of 
 executions after 1649 was so marvellously small, 
 must by his most grudging critics be attributed 
 mainly to the magnanimous mercy of Cromwell, of 
 whom his bitter enemy, Clarendon, admits, that he 
 "could bear ill language and reproaches with less 
 disturbance and concernment, than any Person in 
 Authority had ever done 2 ." He struck terribly hard 
 in the heat of battle, but oceans of blood shed on the 
 field of battle do not leave the vengeful memories of 
 rivulets on the scaffold. But in justice to the Parlia- 
 ment it must be said, that, with rare exceptions, they 
 also were honourably distinguished by their tender- 
 ness of human life. There were no Heberts or 
 Fouquier-Tinvilles in the English Revolution ; there 
 was no Terror. And therefore there was no period 
 of insane frenzy, no paralysis of law and order. 
 
 1 Carlyle, iv. 23. The intense conservatism of Cromwell's 
 nature is often overlooked. He was a true Tory squire. 
 
 2 Clarendon, in. 392.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 THE position of 1649 is unique in English history. Attempts 
 Not only was the country brought, for the first time, %]~ ie 
 face to face with the problem of Constitution-making, Govern- 
 but it was entirely in doubt who should undertake 
 the solution. Three authorities, the Parliament, the 
 congregations, and the army, in turn attempted the 
 task, and all, apparently, failed. 
 
 The plans of two of the three rival powers are 
 recorded with remarkable definiteness in printed 
 documents. The plan of the Parliament, which was 
 first tried, can be gathered from its action. 
 
 On December 10, 1648, the army had published Plan of 
 a pamphlet entitled Foundations of Freedom ; or an 
 Agreement of the People : proposed as a Mule for Agreement 
 future Government in the Establishment of a firm and p 
 lasting Peace 1 . The essential demands of this scheme 
 were as follows : 
 
 1. The immediate summoning of a new " Repre- 
 sentative " of 300 members upon a basis of household 
 
 1 Copy in T. P. xxxvm.
 
 26 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 suffrage, with an exclusion of royalists for seven years, 
 and a selection of candidates for fourteen years from 
 Active supporters of the parliamentary cause. 
 
 2. The appointment by each " Representative " 
 of a Council of State, to last till the meeting of the 
 succeeding Representative. (Councillors, officers on 
 pay, and revenue officers, were not to be eligible 
 as candidates for a Representative.) 
 
 3. A Representative to be elected every year 1 . 
 But in cases of emergency the Council of State was 
 to have power to summon a new Representative to 
 last not more than 40 days, and to be dissolved not 
 less than two months before the day for the meeting 
 of the next regular Representative. 
 
 4. The power of the Representative to be un- 
 limited ; except that it should not extend to 
 
 a. Restrain in matters of religion. 
 6. Impress soldiers and sailors. 
 
 c. Further punish for malignancy. 
 
 d. Grant exemption from laws. 
 
 e. Derogate from the Agreement, or "levell 
 estates, destroy propriety, or make all 
 things common." 
 
 5. No member of the Representative to be 
 capable of election to office, except to membership 
 of the Council of State. 
 
 This plan was afterwards, on January 20, 1649, 
 published in an amended form 2 , the only material 
 alteration being that by the later scheme the number 
 
 1 Oddly enough, the length of time for which Parliaments were 
 to sit does not appear to have been fixed by the document. 
 
 2 Copy in Camb. Lib. x. 28, 43.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 27 
 
 of the Representative is increased to 400. Several 
 reforms were indicated in the pamphlet as pressingly 
 needed, but it was specially declared that the framers 
 of the scheme would not regard these as essentials. 
 
 The obvious criticism upon this plan is that it Criticism 
 does more credit to the army's morality than to its 
 wisdom. The total absence of stipulations for the 
 satisfaction of its own just claims may well excite 
 our admiration for this magnanimous body. But as 
 a constitution the scheme was unworkable. It would 
 have rendered the Council of State the sovereign 
 power, for the first Representative and its Council 
 would have been unanimous. But with the dissolu- 
 tion of the Representative the popular influence over 
 the executive would have vanished, and its successor 
 would have had before it the embarrassing alterna- 
 tive of continuing in power a body of outsiders, or of 
 breaking the continuity of government by appointing 
 a new Council of untried men. In the intervals 
 between the Representatives the Council would 
 have been engaged in strengthening its interest 
 in the country, and while by excluding Councillors 
 from election to the Representative the scheme 
 denied the electorate an admirable opportunity of 
 criticizing their conduct in office, it left them free 
 to exercise any amount of indirect influence to 
 secure the election of their nominees. This was Compared 
 precisely the fate of the Swedish constitution of Swedish 
 1720, a scheme which resembled the army's plan Constitu- 
 in its main outlines. The post of Councillor of State 1720 
 became the chief object of political ambition, and 
 the position, once gained, was used as a means of
 
 28 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 unblushing corruption. The meetings of the Estates 
 were simply an arena in which the rival parties, the 
 Hats and the Caps, fought their battles for place and 
 power. 
 
 The plan The scheme of the congregations was embodied 
 gregations. a tract written by the notorious John Lilburne, 
 entitled England's New Chains Discovered, published 
 on February 26, 1649 1 . It is in avowed opposition 
 to the plan of the army, which it censures as obscure 
 in vital points. It demands 
 
 1. Annual Parliaments, with no interval. 
 
 2. Enforcement of the Self-denying Ordinance. 
 
 3. Dissolution of the existing Council of State. 
 
 4. Preservation of the existing Parliament until 
 the election of a new one. 
 
 Criticism The meaning of this plan is clear. It is animated 
 scheme. throughout by a jealousy of any individual exercise 
 of power, but more especially of any exercise by the 
 army officers. It is the extreme democratic ideal of 
 government by majorities, which grudges even the 
 existence of a Council, though it be, as the existing 
 Council was, merely a committee of the popular 
 assembly. It is needless to point out how utterly 
 impossible the scheme was. For a large assembly of 
 experienced and firmly seated men to exercise every 
 petty duty of government without delegation of its 
 powers would be well-nigh impracticable, but for an 
 assembly elected only for a year, and liable to com- 
 plete re-construction in a fit of popular enthusiasm, 
 to attempt government on such terms, would be 
 simply to invite anarchy. 
 
 1 T. P. xvii. 534.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 29 
 
 We now come to the actual policy of the Parlia- Views of 
 
 the Par - 
 
 liament 
 There can be, I think, no reasonable doubt that upon its 
 
 the House regarded itself, not, according to the view portion. 
 taken by both its rivals, as a constituent assembly, 
 but as a permanent and universally sovereign body. 
 It continued to exercise all the revolutionary powers 
 which had fallen to it during the war-period, one of 
 the most odious being the interference in private 
 lawsuits. An entry in the journals shews the mind 
 of the Parliament on this subject in the clearest 
 light. 
 
 " Question propounded ' that this House doth 
 declare, that they will not meddle with any case 
 of Meum and Tuum, between Party and Party, 
 which is determinable by any Court of Justice, 
 except it be in case of Male Administration, or 
 where the Law is defective.' Negatived 1 ." 
 
 But of course the great question was that of the The "New 
 dissolution, the question of the " New Representative," tentative." 
 as it was called. Whether the new constitution was 
 to consist of a sovereign assembly or not, all parties, 
 with the exception of the sitting members and their 
 immediate following, were agreed that the existing 
 House, which neither in law nor in fact represented 
 the nation, should be dissolved. Even the House 
 
 1 Journals, Dec. 6, 1649. There are some traces of an Act 
 brought in to regulate the " election of officers in the Common- 
 wealth " (Journals, Aug. 2, 1649) but it was apparently dropped, 
 and the House went on filling up places in the old way. (Cf. 
 Journals, Nov. 7, 1649, Nov. 7, 1650, and Aug. 6, 1651. Whitelock 
 489, &c.)
 
 30 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 itself admitted the necessity in theory. But did it 
 honestly accept the situation ? 
 
 Conduct of Undoubtedly it did not. Upon this point the 
 
 'ont^e USe ey idence of its own Journals is conclusive. As the 
 
 question, point is somewhat important, I have thought it well 
 
 to insert a digest, taken, not from the indexes, but 
 
 from the Journals themselves, of all the entries upon 
 
 the subject from April 1649 to April 1653. 
 
 1649. 
 
 April 30. First mention of subject. Sir A. Hasel- 
 rig to report. 
 
 May 1. Bill read a first and second time, and 
 referred to a committee. 
 
 May 11. Referred to a grand committee. 
 
 May 15. A committee appointed to settle the 
 succession of Parliaments. 
 
 [June 22. The Council of State, in enumerating 
 urgent business to be done before recess, does not 
 include the bill, but recommends that it be con- 
 sidered during recess. 
 
 June 27. On the re-statement of business, even 
 this recommendation is dropped.] 
 
 (There was no recess.) 
 
 October 11. The committee for regulating elec- 
 tions to sit de die in diem and report on Tuesday 
 fortnight. 
 
 1650. 
 
 Jan. 9. Outlines of distribution scheme reported. 
 Total of 400 members agreed to, and matter referred 
 back to grand committee. 
 
 From this time until August 14 the grand
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 31 
 
 committee sits weekly, simply reporting its sittings, 
 and asking leave to sit again. (Seven months.) 
 
 August 14. The committee begins to sit fort- 
 nightly. 
 
 October 23. Resumes weekly sittings. Records 
 of adjournment till 
 
 1651. 
 
 June 11, when they cease to appear. (18 
 months.) 
 
 August 6. Re-appearance of formal report. 
 Again dropped till 
 
 September 17. (Cromwell having returned from 
 Worcester.) Debate and adjournment. 
 
 October 8. Report of bill by committee, and 1st 
 reading. 
 
 October 10. 2nd reading. Reference to grand 
 committee. This committee sits daily till 
 
 October 23. When it is adjourned for several 
 days. Then sits again, but less frequently. 
 
 November 14. House resolves, by a majority of 
 two, " that it is a convenient time to declare a period 
 for the Parliament." 
 
 November 18. It is resolved that this period 
 shall be November 3, 1654. (Three years more, 
 exactly fourteen years from the first meeting of the 
 Parliament.) 
 
 1652. 
 
 May 12. Re-appearance of grand committee, 
 on this and two following Wednesdays. Then 
 dropped.
 
 32 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 1653. 
 
 March 2. Debate of two amendments on the 
 Scotch and Irish representation. Then follow weekly 
 sittings until 
 
 March 30. When the committee's proposal of a 40s. 
 franchise is altered by the House to one of 200 capital. 
 
 From this date until the dissolution of the Par- 
 liament on April 19 following, there are no entries 
 on the subject, probably owing to the mutilation 
 of the Journals. But the unimpeached testimony 
 of the time records that when the republicans found 
 that they could no longer delay the passing of the 
 bill, they attempted to force it through with two 
 extraordinary clauses 
 
 (1) That the existing members of the House 
 should return to the new Parliament without re- 
 election. 
 
 (2) That their members should form a com- 
 mittee to decide upon the validity of elections. 
 
 In other words, the House, having, at the end of 
 four years' debate, not decided the most elementary- 
 provisions of the bill, suddenly endeavoured to pass 
 it through in such a form as would render it worse 
 than useless. By the addition of the two new 
 clauses the measure became a perpetuation instead 
 of a dissolution bill. Had the measure been carried 
 into effect, it would have reintroduced the bi-cameral 
 system in a very unexpected way. The permanent 
 members, by virtue of their great traditions and 
 official experience, would have formed a body apart. 
 If the election-committee had made use of its
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 33 
 
 power to exclude all candidates opposed to this 
 official ring, the popular chamber would have be- 
 come a mere appendage to the old bureaucracy. If 
 the committee had really allowed freedom of choice, 
 there would have been two chambers in permanent 
 opposition, and a deadlock of business. To have ex- 
 cluded the old members from re-election would have 
 been to anticipate the mistake of the Constituent 
 Assembly of 1791, but to retain them en masse, not 
 as the leaven of experience, but as the buttress of a 
 supercilious bureaucracy, would have been fatal. 
 
 We may take it, then, that the mind of the 
 Parliament was to continue government on the lines 
 gradually adopted during the war time. On Feb- 
 ruary 8, 1649, the House appointed Whitelock, 
 Keble, and Lord Lisle Commissioners of the Great Cpmmis- 
 Seal 1 , and on the 4th it proceeded to nominate a the Great 
 Council of State of 41 2 , to replace the old " Com- SeaL 
 mittee for Both Kingdoms." This Council was council of 
 intended to be merely a parliamentary committee. State - 
 
 Its seal bore the inscription " The Seal of the Council zt . s 
 
 1 . character. 
 
 of State, appointed by the Parliament of England 3 ," 
 it was only appointed for a year 4 , it was to have no 
 permanent president 5 , its members were compelled 
 to sign an " Engagement " to adhere to the existing 
 form of government 6 , and it was only after some 
 debate that the House decided to admit any one 
 except its own members 7 . Ultimately, however, three 
 outsiders, Alderman Wilson, Chief-Baron Wylde, and 
 
 1 Whitelock, 374. 2 Whitelock, 376. 3 Journals, Feb. 17, 
 1649. 4 Journals, Feb. 13, and Whitelock, 376. 5 Journals, 
 Feb. 15. 6 Journals, Feb. 19. 7 Journals, Feb. 13, 1649. 
 
 J. 3
 
 34 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Major-General Skippon, were included 1 . The powers 
 given to the Council, though wide, were strictly 
 defined 2 , and were revised upon every fresh election 3 . 
 Upon all important matters it was to report to the 
 House, and when, after the rule against perpetual 
 presidents had been violated, the Parliament voted 
 that no chairman of a committee should sit for 
 longer than a year, it expressly included under this 
 definition the President of the Council 4 . It differed 
 from a modern cabinet in two important points. It 
 had not control of the departments of state, and it 
 could not appeal from the Parliament to the electo- 
 rate. It immediately violated one of its instructions 
 by appointing Bradshaw permanent president 5 , and 
 though it did a great deal of business, its mem- 
 bership does not seem to have been highly valued, 
 for the average attendance at its meetings was only 
 a fraction over 13 6 . 
 
 its As a matter of fact it found itself in precisely 
 
 conduct, ^e same difficulty as the Parliament, for purposes 
 of the executive. It was too large. And it met 
 this difficulty in precisely the same way as Parliament 
 had done. During the course of this and the subse- 
 quent Council no less than 80 sub-committees were 
 formed for various purposes 7 . Like the Parliament 
 it was a deliberative, rather than an executive body, 
 it acted as a Committee of the Articles, and like the 
 Scotch Lords of the Articles, it probably, but not 
 
 1 Calendar, i. Introd. p. xv. - Journals, Feb. 13. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 425, and Journals, Feb. 12, 1650, &c. 
 
 4 Whitelock, 490. 5 Calendar, i. xx. 
 6 Calendar, i. p. xiii. 7 Calendar, i. 620.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 35 
 
 certainly, could command a majority in the Parlia- 
 ment. The average attendance in Parliament at this 
 time was about 60. Thirty-eight members of the 
 Council were also members of the Parliament. On 
 March 8 it was resolved by the House that the Coun- 
 cil of State and committees should not sit at the 
 same time as the House 1 . Therefore it is probable 
 that the members of the Council were also the active 
 members of the House, and that, consequently, the 
 members of the Council in Parliament confirmed the 
 acts of the members of Council in Council. The 
 real power lay, as before the appointment of the 
 Council, with the committees, which were intensely 
 unpopular in the country 2 . 
 
 There is no doubt that the Parliament was Attitude of 
 thoroughly afraid of the army. On March 6 it 
 
 was reported to the House that the existing forces towards 
 
 t JlC OLTTH. V 
 
 numbered 44,373 men, plus 2500 ready to be dis- 
 banded, and the Council of State recommended the 
 continuance of an establishment of 40,000, of whom 
 1 2,000 should at once be embarked for Ireland 3 . But 
 the House, taking the unusual step of disagreeing 
 with the Council, voted that only 4,000 should be 
 retained for garrison duty, in addition to the 12,000 
 for Ireland, and that the rest should be immediately 
 disbanded 4 . There was a plausible excuse for the 
 step in the enormous expense involved by the army 
 establishment. A standing army was new to England, 
 
 1 Whitelock, 378. 
 
 2 The Mysterie of the Two Juntos quoted supra p. 20, T. P. v. 
 p. 82. 
 
 3 Journals. 4 Journals, March 6. 
 
 32
 
 36 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 and the ordinary revenue of the state was totally 
 inadequate to meet the expense, which was raised 
 by a monthly assessment upon property and income, 
 the beginning of the modern system of direct tax- 
 ation. The cost of the existing army was, roughly, 
 100,000 a month 1 , and the proposal of the Council 
 would only have reduced it by one-fifth 2 ; the Parlia- 
 ment, therefore, had a really popular cry to raise in 
 striving for the abolition of this enormous expense, 
 the parent, not only of the unpopular " assessment," 
 but of the equally unpopular " excise." It is needless 
 to say, however, that the army was not disbanded. 
 The curious process by which the soldiers decided 
 amongst themselves who should undertake the Irish 
 campaign, is a proof of the autonomy of the military 
 element at this period, and the Parliament had finally 
 to submit to the odium of raising a monthly sum of 
 90,000 by assessment, the remaining 30,000 need- 
 ed for the war being procured by a sale of the Crown 
 fee farm rents 3 . 
 
 Effect of The Irish war apparently strengthened the Par- 
 
 ^ar^onthe li amen ^ by removing from head-quarters the most 
 
 Parlia- dangerous of the rival elements. From this time 
 
 until September 1651, Cromwell and his chiefs are 
 
 engaged in the stern duties of campaign, and have 
 
 no leisure to attend to constitutional matters. But 
 
 in reality the relaxation of pressure was fatal to the 
 
 House. It left them alone to face the gathering 
 
 1 Journals, March 6. 
 
 2 Whitelock, 378. 
 
 3 Scobell, Acts and Ordinances of the Commonwealth, Act of 
 March 11, 1650.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 37 
 
 cloud of suspicion which their accumulation of power The Par- 
 had generated. They were accused on all sides of ^.^"j 
 corruption. The suspicion expresses itself in the of car- 
 plains of the army and the sectaries, as well as in p ll 
 the unofficial documents. There is a curious pam- 
 phlet, probably quite untrustworthy in details, en- 
 titled The Mysterie of the Good Old Cause Briefly 
 Unfolded, printed in Cobbett's Parliamentary His- 
 tory 1 , which gives an appalling list of emoluments 
 supposed to have been acquired by the members. But 
 there were things quite beyond dispute which had 
 an ugly look. Bradshaw was President of the Coun- Bradshaw. 
 cil, Chief Justice of North Wales and of Chester, 
 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Judge of 
 the Sheriff's Court at Guildhall ; and the House 
 had voted him a donation of 1000, and 2000 a 
 year in land 2 . Whitelock was Commissioner of the Whitelock. 
 Great Seal (at 1000 a year). Constable of Windsor, 
 Ambassador to Sweden, and a member of the Council. 
 Lenthall was Speaker of the House (fees considerable), Lenthall. 
 Master of the Rolls, and Chancellor of Chester. Sir 
 Henry Vane was given, or at least voted, lands of Vane. 
 1200 a year on surrendering the treasurership of 
 the navy, and he was believed, as well as Sir Arthur 
 Haselrig, to have speculated largely in forfeited 
 property. Evidently these things were incompatible 
 with the purest and most disinterested patriotism. 
 
 But the Parliament was also left alone to bear The 
 the odium of the terrible financial question, 
 had now become very pressing. 
 
 It was the ancient theory of the constitution that 
 1 Vol. in. 1591. 2 Journals, June 19, 1649.
 
 38 
 
 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 The 
 ancient 
 theory 
 of the 
 revenue. 
 
 Extra- 
 ordinary 
 taxation. 
 
 Fall in the 
 value of 
 money. 
 
 "the king should live of his own." That is to say, 
 the revenue of the monarch, which till long after the 
 Commonwealth period was also the revenue of the 
 state, was merely the ancient feudal or prerogative 
 dues, jealously guarded from increase, the varying 
 items of income from the royal domains, and, later 
 on, the produce of the port dues, which since the 
 fourteenth century had become, practically, a regular 
 source of the royal income. Most of the government 
 officials, the judges, the sheriffs, the household 
 officers, were paid by fees levied in the course of 
 their duties, and do not appear in the revenue ac- 
 counts at all. 
 
 Of course there had been many occasions on 
 which an extraordinary addition to this revenue had 
 been demanded, and it had been one of the vital 
 questions of constitutional history, whether the 
 Crown or the Parliament should be the judge of 
 such occasions. Long ago this question had been 
 settled in favour of the Parliament, and the decision 
 was of vital consequence. The older forms of hidage, 
 carucage, and tallage, which appeared before the 
 regular constitution of Parliament, long remained 
 on the border-line between royal and parliamentary 
 taxation ; but the tenths and fifteenths of Edward I. 
 and his successors, and the subsidies of the Lancas- 
 trian and Tudor Parliaments, were regarded strictly 
 as exceptional gifts from the nation to the king, to 
 be made only in cases of obvious necessity, arid often 
 only in return for solid advantages. 
 
 And there was another fact which pressed hardly 
 on the Crown. Nearly all the old prerogative claims
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 39 
 
 had been compounded for at fixed money sums. The 
 aids and reliefs of the great tenants in capite, the ferm 
 of the shires, the composition for military service, were 
 all commuted for definite amounts. Even the extra- 
 ordinary grants, the tenths and subsidies, tended to 
 become of fixed conventional amount. And the value 
 of money was falling all the time. Consequently, 
 the Crown was always tending to bankruptcy, and 
 always requiring help of Parliament. It might 
 almost be said that the development of the English 
 constitution is due to the fall in the value of money. 
 It is certain that many of the constitutional crises of 
 English history were brought about by that fact. 
 
 The condition of the revenue at the close of the The 
 mediaeval monarchy may be gathered from the <,/ 1443. 
 statement presented by Lord Ralph Cromwell to the 
 Parliament of 1443 \ The feudal revenue was 
 23,000, reduced by fixed charges to 9,000. The 
 customs, which, though only a portion of them could 
 really be claimed by prerogative, had by that time 
 come to be reckoned as ordinary revenue, yielded 
 27,000, and the Duchy of Lancaster a little over 
 2000. Altogether the available revenue was just 
 over 38,000, and the expenditure upwards of 
 56,000. Clearly by this time the Crown was in- 
 capable of doing business without a regular recourse 
 to what was then considered extraordinary taxation. 
 
 The Tudors were both lucky and skilful in evading The Tudor 
 the question. By strictly exacting the forfeitures of re 
 the Wars of the Roses, by reviving many of the old 
 feudal claims which had died out, and by rigid 
 1 Eot. Par. iv. 4329.
 
 40 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 parsimony in administration, Henry VII. had 
 amassed an enormous treasure which he left to his 
 extravagant son. The rich windfall of the monas- 
 teries helped to fill the gap made by Henry VIII. in 
 the royal treasure. The plunder of the chantries had 
 satisfied the wants of Edward VI.'s ministers. And 
 the thrifty management of Elizabeth, aided by the 
 greatly increased customs-revenue which the de- 
 velopment of trade produced, succeeded in keeping 
 the Crown independent. But even Elizabeth felt 
 the shoe pinch. The murmurs against the "mono- 
 polies" and the "duties" in the latter part of her 
 reign shew that the Queen was striving warily to 
 augment her revenue, which a coinage decreasing 
 in value did not fairly represent. 
 The The question, thus staved off, returned, as such 
 
 revenue oj q ues tions do, with redoubled force. Parliament 
 James I. * 
 
 recognized the truth of the situation, by granting the 
 customs to James for life 1 , but the king found it 
 necessary to make arbitrary additions to the "Book 
 of Rates" published by Elizabeth, and to procure a 
 doubtful decision to support them. An interesting 
 pamphlet 2 , perhaps untrustworthy in details, was 
 published in the year 1617, professing to be an 
 account of James' revenue and expenditure, and it 
 is worth a notice here because it was reprinted in 
 1651, and was evidently intended as a contribution 
 to the settlement of the question. 
 
 1 1 Jac. I. c. 33. 
 
 2 An Abstract or Brief Declaration of the present state of His 
 Majesties Revenew. Printed for M. S. (? Michael Sparke), T. P. 
 xxix. 199.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 41 
 
 In 1617 the receipts from the customs (including The 
 
 in this term the duties on silks and sweet wines v ue f 
 and the "impositions" of doubtful legality) amount- 
 ed to nearly 250,000. The Crown lands brought 
 80,000, and the feudal dues just 50,000. In all, 
 with a large item of "miscellanies," a little over 
 450,000. But this was reduced by fixed charges 
 ('assignations') and by defalcations to 250,000, 
 whilst the normal annual expenditure was 286,000, 
 thus leaving an annual deficit of 36,000. More- 
 over, the king had incurred abnormal expenses, since 
 the beginning of his reign, to the amount of five 
 millions and upwards, of which one half was due to 
 the marriage of his daughter with the unfortunate 
 "Winter- King" (a marriage in many ways disastrous 
 to England) and the other to his reckless gifts to 
 favourites. He had, of course, made some attempts 
 to raise extraordinary revenue to meet this extra- 
 vagance, and the list of these attempts shews the 
 straits to which the Crown had been driven. The 
 most interesting, perhaps, is the levying of fines for 
 new buildings in London under the statute of 
 Elizabeth 1 , the most disgraceful are the creation of 
 baronets, the confirmations of "assarts" and defective 
 titles generally, and the compositions for fines in the 
 Star Chamber. The total realized was under two 
 millions and a quarter, leaving a capital debt of 
 three millions to be swelled by the annual deficit. 
 
 The crash came when Charles I. added the burden The 
 of war to the already overtaxed Exchequer. For 
 two hundred years England had been practically 
 i 35 Eliz. c. 6.
 
 42 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 free from this strain, and to its absence was doubt- 
 less due in a great measure the success of the 
 Crown in keeping down the rising flood of bank- 
 ruptcy. But the disgracefully managed expedi- 
 tions to Rochelle and Cadiz burst the gates and 
 swept the king away in the torrent. With almost 
 incredible folly he quarrelled with the Parliament, 
 his only hope, and then the game was indeed played 
 out. The wild attempts made by Charles to raise 
 money are too familiar to need repetition. They 
 were hopelessly inadequate to meet the difficulty. 
 It was necessary that a large permanent addition 
 should be made to the revenue, and the only 
 authority capable of making it was in deadly hos- 
 tility to the king. 
 
 The three During the war period the Parliament adopted 
 
 new taxes ., f i , i 
 
 of the Par- three great new taxes, two or which have since 
 
 liament. become practically permanent. It levied by monthly 
 
 The As- " assessments" a heavy tax on property and incomes, 
 
 segments, ^g^ U p 0n a calculation of the highest return ever 
 
 made for a subsidy. But the great superiority of 
 
 the rating, adjusted by the local authorities, made 
 
 it a much more effective instrument than the older 
 
 method. 
 
 The The other direct tax of the Parliament, the 
 
 Meal Tax. " Weekly Meal Tax," or the contribution of the price 
 
 of one meal a week by every adult supporter of the 
 
 Parliament, imposed in March 1644, produced 
 
 100,000 a year for six years *. 
 
 The New The third tax was the excise or " New Impost," 
 introduced by Pym, originally by statute on July 
 1 Dowell. History of Taxation and Taxes, n. 6.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 43 
 
 22, 1643 \ as a temporary measure and then ex- 
 panded and made permanent on Aug. 28, 1647 2 . 
 The plan was and always has been unpopular. 
 It is thoroughly opposed to English ideas of the in- 
 violability of the home and the dislike of officialism. 
 But it has proved too useful to be discarded, and 
 plays a conspicuous part in the modern system of 
 taxation. 
 
 This then was the problem which the Parliament Is the new 
 of 1649 had to face : whether it could continue to 1* 
 govern without the new taxation, which had pro- continued? 
 fessed to be, and which was steadily regarded by the 
 mass of the people as, abnormal and temporary. 
 
 Of course in one respect the Parliament was 
 better off than the king had been. The host of 
 pensioners and idle officials, who had grown up 
 round the Court in the bad days of James and 
 Charles, had disappeared. Their claims were no 
 longer recognized. And by the confiscations of the Sources of 
 war, the Parliament had acquired a vast fund o f revenue - 
 Crown property, Church property, and royalist 
 property. The report of Major Salwey on Sept. 3, 
 1650 s , put the annual income from sequestrations Sequestra- 
 at 170,000, and the gross sum due for compositions twn 
 at a quarter of a million. But the House adopted ti 
 a fatal system, or rather want of system. Upon 
 this forfeited property there were of course in- 
 numerable claims, for it was generally looked upon 
 as the great resource for the compensation of all 
 injuries suffered by the members of the winning 
 
 1 Scobell, July 22, 1643. . 2 Scobell, of that date. 
 
 3 Journals of that date.
 
 44 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 party in the course of the war. These claims, instead 
 of being dealt with in one comprehensive plan, were 
 admitted piecemeal by the parliamentary com- 
 mittees, or often by the House itself, and charged 
 upon one or other of the numerous funds, at Gold- 
 smiths' Hall, Weavers' Hall, Haberdashers' Hall, 
 Gurney House, or Salters' Hall, into which the 
 resources of the Parliament were divided. It was 
 Consolida- not until 1652 1 that the House took the obvious step 
 Exche- 6 f solidifying the numerous petty Exchequers into 
 quers. one, and in the meantime they had become absolutely 
 overgrown with a fungus crop of "charges" and 
 "anticipations." The report of Sept. 3, 1650, 
 had to be corrected by another, on December 
 17 following, when it was found that out of the 
 170,000 a year from sequestrations only half that 
 sum could be reckoned upon, and even that was 
 subject to deductions, while the two and a quarter 
 millions due for compositions were more than anti- 
 cipated by charges amounting to upwards of three 
 millions and a half' 2 . The process of sequestration 
 was frightfully expensive. Local committees, sub- 
 committees, surveyors, informers, finally the central 
 committee, all took toll of the plunder. Sometimes 
 the informer got as much as a third ; he would not 
 inform for less. And a pension was usually allowed 
 out of the sequestered property to the widow or wife 
 of the delinquent, so that the amount which finally 
 reached the Exchequer was very small. Compositions, 
 where the delinquent voluntarily surrendered his 
 
 1 Journals, Jan. 23, 1652. Whitelock, 426. 
 
 2 Journals, Dec. 17, 1650.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 45 
 
 property on terms of partial restitution, were much 
 more profitable, but even they, by the nature of the 
 case, were subject to deductions. An immense 
 amount of knowledge lies hid in the records of the 
 composition and sequestration committees, many of 
 them yet unprinted, but such investigation is beyond 
 the scope of the present essay. 
 
 It was obvious, however, that whilst the recog- 
 nition of claims proceeded in this way, the surest 
 title to success was interest in Parliament, and not 
 superior merit. Now the army, by whose labours 
 these confiscations had been made possible, not 
 unnaturally considered that they formed a fund 
 for recouping, in the first place, their long arrears 
 of pay, and making provision for their sick and 
 wounded. It is to this fact that we trace, without 
 doubt, the growing ill-feeling between the Parliament 
 and the army, which ended in the dissolution of 1653. 
 The Parliament did indeed charge an annual sum of 
 17,000 on the excise for the wounded soldiers 1 , and 
 it found money readily enough to send troops to 
 Ireland and Scotland, but it shewed no anxiety to 
 come to a settlement of standing arrears. In fact it 
 talked about disbanding the army before these arrears 
 were paid. 
 
 There can be small doubt that a vast system of comip- 
 corruption was at work with regard to this confisca- tion - 
 tion fund. The superior readiness with which the 
 claims of members of Parliament and their friends 
 were satisfied may be questioned, although the evi- 
 dence of it exists in the Journals. But the evidence 
 1 Salwey's Eeport. Journals, Sept. 3, 1650.
 
 46 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 of fraud in lower quarters is beyond question. In 
 April 1650, the House sent six persons to the 
 pillory for defrauding the revenue 1 . In August 
 1654, two men named Fugill and Granger con- 
 fessed to a wholesale and long-continued scheme of 
 plunder, by which debentures and public-faith bills 
 to the extent of 150,000 had been impudently 
 forged and cashed. The prisoners gave details of 
 the criminality of twenty-one persons, and whether 
 they can be trusted in details or not, there can be no 
 doubt of the truth of the main facts 2 . Moreover 
 the Parliament adopted a plan which, though it 
 saved them from the immediate pressure of wealthy 
 claimants, must have seemed grossly unjust to the 
 poorer classes of petitioners. They enacted 3 that 
 any purchaser of public lands who should have 
 claims against the state should be entitled to 
 purchase lands of twice the value by payment of 
 a sum equivalent to the claim 4 . This was the 
 " Doub- famous process of "doubling," of which the books 
 are full. As public sales probably did not average 
 more than twelve years' purchase, though Ludlow says 
 they sometimes reached seventeen 5 , it is evident 
 that claimants with spare capital might make a 
 very good bargain out of the offer. And whilst 
 this recklessness was going on, the wounded sailors 
 of the Parliament's fleet were dying for want of 
 
 1 Journals, April 1, 1650. 
 
 2 Calendar, vn. pp. 340, 415. 
 
 3 By the Act for sale of Dean and Chapter's Lands. Scobelly 
 1649, 24, fo. 22. 
 
 4 This was the minimum amount fixed by the Act of 1649. 
 Scobell, 1649, 24, fo. 20. 5 Memoirs, i. 299.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 47 
 
 food and medicine. The story of Elizabeth Alkin 1 
 ("Parliament Joan"), the Miss Nightingale of the 
 period, is evidence of the little care that was taken 
 for the humbler sufferers who had claims on the 
 " public faith." 
 
 Probably, then, on the whole, this source of 
 income was a snare rather than a support to the 
 Parliament. There remain, therefore, practically, 
 only the customs, excise, and assessments, for the 
 feudal dues had been abolished by resolution on 
 February 24, 1645. 
 
 The customs, at the accession of James I., pro- The 
 duced in round numbers 112,000 a year 2 . The Cllstomg - 
 victory of the Crown in the case of " Impositions " 
 had enabled James slightly to increase this branch of 
 the revenue, so that in the year 1610 it had grown 
 to 136,000 3 . The improvement was maintained, 
 and the customs during the Stuart period shew 
 a decided tendency to increase, till at the outbreak 
 of the war they amount to 250,000 per annum 4 , 
 and even the anarchy of the terrible war-decade does 
 not succeed in checking the advance 5 . 
 
 The anticipated death of the king and the 
 declaration of the Republic appear to have created 
 something of a panic amongst the merchants. The 
 dues at the port of London, which in the first week 
 of January 1649 amounted to upwards of 10,000, 
 and in the following week exceeded 12,000, fell 
 suddenly in the third week to 4600, and on the 
 
 1 Cf. Calendar, iv. 228, 620, v. 177, 484, 490, vi. 5, 413. 
 
 2 Hall, Customs Revenue, i. 174 
 
 3 Hall, it. 246. * Hall, i. 183. 5 Hall, n. 246.
 
 48 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 actual execution of the king to about a quarter of 
 that sum, till in the third week of February they 
 failed to reach 1000 \ 
 
 But, if our sources of information be correct, the 
 Parliament must speedily have found means to re- 
 store confidence. For, whether owing to a greater 
 severity in collection, or to an increase of rating, the 
 return for the year ending June 1650 reached the 
 hitherto unparalleled sum of 275,000 2 , and during 
 the remainder of the Republic actually exceeded 
 300,000 a year 3 . 
 
 The The excise receipts during the six and three 
 
 Excise. q uar ter years from Sept. 1643 to June 1650 had 
 produced a sum of 1,915,705. 6s. 8d., or an 
 average income of 284,000. From this however 
 had been deducted permanent charges "maimed 
 soldiers," "interest on charges," and one-eighth for 
 office expenses, amounting altogether to nearly 
 105,000, so that the net result was only 180,000 
 a year. But even this was unavailable for upwards 
 of a year from the date of the report (Sept. 1650), 
 being pledged to an immediate payment of 200,000 
 " for the service of the Commonwealth 4 ." 
 
 Vane's report, made two years later, is still worse. 
 The income has risen to 340.000, but the charges 
 for the Commonwealth and "particular persons" 
 amount to upwards of 1,300,000, so that the revenue 
 from this source is completely anticipated for three 
 
 1 Figures taken from Calendar, S. P. i. 13 20. Cf. also vol. 
 i. 30. Vol. m. 28, 110. 
 
 2 Hall, n. 246. 3 Hall, n. 246. 
 4 Salwey's report. Journals, Sept. 3, 1650.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 49 
 
 or four years 1 . The House, therefore, although 
 doubtless some of the " charges " represent accruing 
 expenses, cannot have relied upon this branch of 
 the revenue for regular income. As the assessments 
 form the final resource of the Parliament, the abso- 
 lutely necessary method of making both ends meet, 
 we may perhaps before noticing them, turn to the 
 two great items of expense in the Republican 
 budget. 
 
 During the Civil War the expense of the navy Expenses. 
 had been kept well within the bounds of its legi- 
 timate supply, the customs-revenue. From a The Navy. 
 pamphlet published by Giles Greene, chairman of 
 the parliamentary committee for the navy, in the 
 year 1647 2 , we learn that the expenditure during 
 the five preceding years had been just under 
 1,187,000 or an average of 237,000 per annum. 
 On June 12, 1649 3 , Vane, treasurer of the navy, 164950. 
 estimated the annual expenditure necessary to 
 maintain a due efficiency at 283,000 plus an 
 additional sum of 75,000 for outfit. But at the 16501. 
 beginning of the next year, in view of the anticipated 
 troubles with the Dutch, the Council of State re- 
 commended an expenditure of 1,900,000* for the 
 eight months' " Summer's Guard," and for the winter 
 11 5,000 5 , making upwards of two millions in all. 
 This enormous expenditure was not maintained, but 
 
 1 Vane's report. Journals, Nov. 9, 1652. 
 - A Declaration in Vindication of the House of the Parliament. 
 (Copy in Camb. Univ. Lib. x. 28, 42.) 
 
 3 Journals. 
 
 4 Journals, Jan. 1, 1650. 
 
 5 Journals, Sept. 12. 
 
 J. 4
 
 50 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 16512. for the next year (1652) the House estimated that 
 the navy would cost 300,000 ' above the receipt 
 from the customs, though two months later this sum 
 was reduced to 589,000 in all, or 240,000 in excess 
 of the regular income allotted for the purpose. On 
 
 16523. Jan. 14, 1652, Blake reported from the Council of 
 State that the expense of the summer's fleet 
 would be 420,000 2 , and this was increased, in a 
 later estimate, to 700,000 by the addition of new 
 ships and convoy duty 3 , only 376,000 being pro- 
 vided from the ordinary sources. On November 4, 
 1652, the accounts for the winter shewed contin- 
 gencies to the amount of nearly 1,300,000, of which 
 only 415,000 was provided for 4 . Putting these 
 figures together, we find that during its tenure of 
 power the Parliament was called upon to provide a 
 total sum of upwards of four millions, or above one 
 million a year, for the item of the navy alone. If we 
 take the average produce of the customs even at 
 350,000, this leaves an annual charge of 650,000 
 to be met by extraordinary taxation. 
 
 The Army. The other great item is, of course,* the army. 
 The evidence here is not nearly so clear as for the 
 navy, and the jealousy with which the land forces 
 were regarded by the Parliament may possibly lead 
 us to distrust their records. 
 
 At the beginning of the Republic the expense 
 of the army was estimated at 160,000 a month 5 . 
 But on March 30, 1650, the Committee for the 
 Army reported that the actual monthly cost of 
 
 1 Journals, March 18, 1651. 2 Journals of Par. 
 
 3 Journals, April 16, 1652. 4 Journals. 5 Whitelock, 378.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 51 
 
 the forces in England and Ireland was 101,000 \ A 
 year later, when the war in Scotland was added to 
 the war with Ireland, the expense had risen to 
 160,000 a month 2 . The Scotch war was entered 
 upon in June 1650, so that if we take the lower 
 figure, and reckon seventeen military months for the 
 double establishment, and sixteen for the treble, 
 which brings us to the battle of Worcester, we get 
 the smallest total army cost till the resettlement of 
 the establishment in October 1651. These figures 
 will be as follows : 
 
 17 months at 101,578 . . . 1,726,726 
 
 16 162,758 . . . 2,604,128 
 or a total of ... 4,330,854 
 and this is probably exclusive of stores and outfit. 
 
 Immediately upon the victory of Worcester the 
 army establishment was reduced, and piit on a new 
 footing after conference held with the Lord-General 
 and his officers. The English and Scotch forces were 
 settled at 82,000 3 a month, the Irish remaining at 
 34,500, but in December of the following year the 
 former charge was reduced to 7 6,000 4 , the latter 
 having previously been lowered to 20,000 5 . Of the 
 last reduction, however, the Parliament only enjoyed 
 the benefit for three months. This would make the 
 cost of the army from the close of the war (Worcester) 
 till the end of the year 1652, 1,721,875, or a grand 
 total during four years of just over six millions. 
 
 We now come to the monthly assessments. At 
 
 1 Journals. 2 Journals, March 18, 1651. 
 
 3 Journals, Oct. 2, 1651. 4 Journals, Dec. 2, 1652. 
 
 3 Journals, Dec. 17, 1651. 
 
 42
 
 52 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 The As- the close of the Civil War these stood at 90,000 a 
 men s. mom ^ anc [ appear to have been so continued until 
 the end of the year 1649 1 . But to satisfy the 
 popular demand for a reduction of taxes, the assess- 
 ment agreed to in December 1649 was to be for 
 
 1650. three months only at the old rate, and for the 
 succeeding three months at 60,000 2 . This plan 
 was repeated for the last half of the year 1650 3 , but 
 the Scotch war necessitated a monthly tax of 
 
 1651. 120,000 during the whole of the following year 4 . 
 The old rate was, however, collected during 1652 5 . 
 
 1652. These figures work out at a total of four millions and 
 a half, and enable us to summarize this lengthy 
 statement in a tabular form. Thus 
 
 Summary. 1649 1652 (inclusive). 
 
 Revenue. Expenditure. 
 
 Customs 1,400,000 Navy 4,000,000 
 
 Excise nil. Army 6,052,729 
 
 Assessments 4,500,000 Government 
 
 Total 5,900,000 107)52,729, 
 
 or, roughly speaking, a deficit of four millions to 
 be provided for, without taking into account the ex- 
 penses of government, as to which no records appear 
 to survive. Possibly these expenses were not very 
 great, for the reasons before stated, but they must 
 have amounted to something, and, of course, the assess- 
 ments did not realize their normal value. The method 
 
 1 Scobell, April 7, 1649. Whitelock, 400, 402. 
 
 2 Scobell, Dec. 7, 1649. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 440. 
 
 4 Whitelock, 461, 464. Scobell, Nov. 29, 1650, Sept. 1, 1651, 
 B Scobell, Dec. 19, 1651, June 15, 1652. Whitelock, 493.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 53 
 
 of collecting them appears to have been peculiar. 
 Of the three months' assessment which began on 
 September 29, 1651, a half was to be paid in to the 
 Treasury by October 20 following 1 , and the fees 
 allowed to the collectors were considerable. Under 
 the Protectorate, when the management of the re- 
 venue was extremely careful, a monthly assessment 
 of 35,000 cost 7000 a year to collect 2 . Under 
 the Parliament the cost was probably far greater, the 
 nominal commission allowed being 2| per cent. 3 
 
 It is impossible to believe that the Parliament 
 could raise a million a year from the sale of forfeited 
 property. A million in the seventeenth century 
 represents about four millions and a half of our 
 money, and vast as were the confiscations of pro- 
 perty which fell to the Parliament, it cannot be 
 supposed that they were great enough to realize, at 
 forced prices, and with all the claims that were made 
 upon them, a quarter of that sum. The irresistible 
 inference is that the complaints of heavy arrears 
 made by the army and navy were well founded 4 . 
 
 A few words will suffice to note the remainder of Other home 
 
 the home policy of the Parliament. Six of the po lcy ' 
 
 . The 
 
 twelve common-law judges consented to accept com- judges. 
 
 missions from the House, and were accordingly con- 
 tinued in their posts 5 , Parliament shewing itself 
 laudably anxious to remove their scruples 6 . A very 
 
 1 Journals, Sept. 2, 1651. 2 Journals. Eeport of April 7, 1659. 
 :i Journals, April 28, 1652. 
 
 4 Cromwell said afterwards that the Parliament " owed " 
 700,000 at the dissolution. (Carlyle, iv. 213.) But it is difficult 
 to say what this means. 
 
 5 Whitelock, 372. 6 Whitelock, 374.
 
 54 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 useful vote was carried to the effect that their remu- 
 neration should for the future be in the form of fixed 
 salary instead of fees 1 . Resolutions were also carried 
 to the effect that all books of law, proceeding's, and 
 records should be done in English and in ordinary 
 hand 2 , and that the old cumbrous processes known 
 as " fines " and " recoveries " should be superseded by 
 simple enrolled deeds 3 , a reform which was carried 
 out on almost identically the same lines in the year 
 1833 4 . Several other valuable suggestions, most of 
 which have since been adopted, were made by the 
 committee for law 5 , which seems finally to have 
 succeeded in compiling a code, or " Book containing 
 the whole system of the Law 6 ." The committee for 
 law had really a good account to give of itself, in 
 spite of the rather unkind allusions of Cromwell, who 
 probably only half understood the difficulties. In 
 pursuance of an order of the Little Parliament on 
 July 12, 1653 7 , the result of its labours was printed, 
 and now remains on record, so that any one who 
 takes the trouble to read it can see that there was 
 some solid work done 8 . 
 
 Parliament also approached the great religious 
 question, and, in pursuance of the Acts for the 
 Maintenance of Ministers 9 , cautiously filled a good 
 many benefices, generally increasing their revenue 
 by " augmentations " out of church lands to the 
 
 1 Journals, Jan. 23, 1652. 2 Journals, Oct. 25, 1650. 
 
 3 Journals, Dec. 13. 4 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 74. 
 
 B Whitelock, 499, 504. Journals, Jan. 21, 1653. 
 
 7 Journals. 8 Printed in Somers Tracts, vi. 177 246. 
 
 9 Scobell, 1649, 31, and 1650, 23.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 55 
 
 annual value of 100'. The latter days of the 
 House were, moreover, cheered by the very satis- 
 factory report 2 of the result of the Act for Religion 
 and Education in Wales 3 . Parliament, also, in 
 August 1650, appointed a Council of Trade 4 , and 
 on Feb. 24, 1652, passed an Act of Oblivion 5 for 
 all political offences committed before the battle of 
 Worcester. To the credit of this last very salutary 
 measure they are not, however, wholly entitled. It 
 had always been one of the chief demands of the 
 army, and it was not until the later elections to the 
 Council of State had secured seats to more of the 
 army officers, that the measure was secured. 
 
 We have now, before dismissing the Parliament, 
 only to see what attempts it made to settle Scotland 
 and Ireland. 
 
 In Scotland the confusion had been far worse Scotland. 
 than in England. There were the high royalists 
 and churchmen under Montrose, the Presbyterian 
 moderate royalists under Hamilton, and the fanatic 
 Covenanters, headed by Argyle, but really under the 
 control of the General Assembly and the Estates ; 
 to say nothing of a whole host of independent 
 chieftains, whose main object was plunder, and who 
 were more dangerous as friends than as enemies. 
 Well might Harrington speak of Scotland as a 
 
 1 Whitelock, 391. 
 
 8 Whitelock, 518. But it should be noticed that Cromwell in 
 his speech at the opening of the Little Parliament expressly accuses 
 the Rump of doing its best to discourage these efforts (Carlyle 
 in. 211). 
 
 3 Scobell, 1649, 70. 4 Whitelock, 452. 
 
 5 Scobell, Feb. 24, 1652.
 
 56 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 country " where the staddels have formerly been too 
 thick 1 ." 
 
 Victories A succession of victories destroyed the principal 
 Parlia- f these parties. Montrose was defeated at Corbies- 
 mentarmy. dale by the Covenanters in the spring of 1650 s , and 
 immediately executed 3 . Charles, who, with incredible 
 hypocrisy, had accepted the bitter terms of Argyle 
 and the Kirk, had had the satisfaction of seeing the 
 Covenanters crushed by Cromwell at Dunbar. After 
 the ridiculous episode known as " The Start," he had 
 succeeded in breaking loose from his captors, and 
 had joined Hamilton at Stirling. The result of 
 Hamilton's campaign was the defeat at Worcester, 
 and to Lambert and Monk was left the task of 
 finally reducing Scotland to obedience 4 . 
 
 Project of These events paved the way for a project which 
 had been favoured in England ever since the acces- 
 sion of James I. The union of the two kingdoms 
 under one system of government had been the pet 
 scheme of the English Solomon, but mutual jealous- 
 ies, in matters of trade and religion especially, had 
 prevented its realization. Parliament now, however, 
 seemed inclined to take the matter up. It appointed 
 commissioners to go to Scotland 5 , and summoned 
 deputies from the Scotch shires and boroughs to 
 The con- meet in convention at Dalkeith to discuss the terms 
 'oalkeith* ^ Union 6 . The Scotch representative system had 
 never been settled in as complete a form as the 
 
 1 Oceana, p. 13. 2 Clarendon, in. 272. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 441. 4 Whitelock, 496. 
 
 5 Journals, Oct. 23, 1651. Whitelock, 487. 
 
 Whitelock, 502.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 57 
 
 English. The distinction between the lords sum- 
 moned by special writ and the elected members does 
 not appear to have been taken till the end of the six- 
 teenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 when " Commissionaris for the small Barronis 1 " begin 
 to make their appearance. The final settlement of 
 the shires was still later, and though there was a 
 number of " royal burghs " entitled to send deputies, 
 who by a course of double election were represented 
 in Parliament, the whole system was in the greatest 
 uncertainty. The English Parliament, however, an- 
 nounced 2 that a large majority of the deputies at 
 Dalkeith had consented to the Union, and in March 
 1652 3 solemnly published a Declaration announcing 
 the fusion of the two countries, a proclamation which 
 was received without approbation in Scotland 4 . 
 Scotch historians assert 5 , and probably with good 
 reason, that the consent was forced, but the Parlia- 
 ment treated it as genuine, making provision for 30 
 Scotch members in its bill for a " New Representa- 
 tive 6 ," and ordering an Act of Union to be brought 
 in 7 , which was done on April 13, 1652 8 . 
 
 Certain it is that, towards the end of the year Scotch 
 
 1652, commissioners or deputies from Scotland did e ^ maug \ 
 
 sioners in 
 
 appear in London, and enter upon the details of London. 
 
 1 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland. A.D. 1609, vol. iv. 404 b. 
 
 2 Journals, Feb. 16, 1652. 
 
 3 Journals, March 25, 1652. 
 
 4 Whitelock, 507. 
 
 5 e. g. Laing, History of Scotland, in. 449. 
 
 6 Journals, March 2, 1652. 
 
 7 Whitelock, 503. 
 
 8 Whitelock, 505. Journals, April 13, 1652.
 
 58 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 the scheme with a parliamentary committee. The 
 record of the proceedings reads too much like the 
 haggling of chapmen to be pleasant. The committee 
 started with the suggestion that since the number 
 of parishes in Scotland, as compared with that in 
 England, was 980 to 10,000, or about 1 in 10, while 
 the value of an English parish was twice that of 
 a Scotch, the offer of 30 members as against 400 
 was liberal 1 . The Scotch deputies replied, that as 
 the number of members in the English Parliament 
 had been 500, which it was proposed to reduce to 
 400, the Scotch members, formerly 120, should be at 
 least 60*; but upon the hint of the ' committee that 
 the amount of the assessment would be proportioned 
 to the size of the representation 3 , the deputies with- 
 drew their claims, and desired that they might know 
 on what principles the assessment and number of 
 members were fixed, in order that they might advise 
 as to the distribution. To this the committee replied 
 that the assessment was constantly changed, so that 
 they could not guarantee its amount, and that 
 Parliament, in fixing the number of 30, had con- 
 sidered also "the number of persons in Scotland, 
 and several other things 4 ." 
 
 The matter was still in suspense when the 
 Parliament was dissolved. 
 
 Ireland. A vivid picture of the anarchy in Ireland at the 
 
 death of the king is given by Clarendon 5 . Five 
 distinct parties divided the island between them. 
 
 1 Calendar, vol. v. p. 46. 2 Calendar, p. 60. 
 
 3 Calendar, vol. vi. p. 52. 4 Calendar, vi. p. 216. 
 
 5 History, in. 232.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 59 
 
 The native Irish of the three southern provinces 
 were leagued as a body entirely independent of 
 England under a band of chiefs known as the 
 Council of Kilkenny. They had made a treaty with 
 Ormonde, who represented the English royalists, but 
 their friendship was treacherous, and the intrigues 
 of the Catholic bishops ultimately succeeded in 
 depriving Ormonde of his Lieutenancy in favour 
 of Lord Clanrickard, a native Catholic 1 . The native 
 Irish of Ulster, under Owen Roe O'Neil, declined 
 to recognize the treaty with Ormonde, and sub- 
 sequently made terms with Monk 2 , which were, 
 however, disowned by the Parliament 3 . Ormonde 
 himself, distracted by treachery and the vacillation 
 of the exiled Court, was at the head of a body of 
 dispirited royalists. The Ulster presbyterians, recog- 
 nizing neither Ormonde nor the Parliament, desired 
 the establishment of the Covenant, in sympathy 
 with their Scotch brethren. And finally the Re- 
 publicans, under the gallant Michael Jones, held 
 out for the Parliament, in sore straits, in Dublin 
 and a few neighbouring places. 
 
 The tremendous campaigns of Cromwell put an ireton and 
 end to all open resistance, and when he returned to Je f t in 
 England he left to Ireton and Ludlow little more charge. 
 than the task of ridding the country of the roving 
 bands of " tones " or bog-trotters, a task which they 
 satisfactorily performed in a mariner rather weari- 
 somely detailed by Whitelock 4 . In October 1650 
 
 1 Clarendon, in. 337. 2 Clarendon, in. 278. 
 
 3 Journals, Aug. 10, 1649. 
 
 4 Whitelock, 430, 453, 458, 461, &c.
 
 60 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 The Irish Ludlow, John Jones, Corbet, and Weaver were 
 sioners. ' appointed " Commissioners of the Parliament of 
 the Commonwealth of England" to proceed to 
 Ireland (Ludlow was already there) and attempt a 
 settlement 1 . Their instructions were to be executed 
 " with the Advice and Approbation " of Cromwell 
 and Ireton *. The latter had been appointed Presi- 
 dent of Munster at the beginning of the year 1650 3 , 
 and nominated Lord Deputy by Cromwell on his 
 departure 4 . The commissioners' instructions were 
 general to repress popery and malignancy, to im- 
 prove the revenue, to maintain preachers and 
 teachers, and to enquire into and report upon the 
 administration of justice. They were to sign all 
 warrants except for payment of troops, and to sit 
 in all Councils of War. It is evident that the 
 Parliament was anxious to attempt the government 
 of Ireland also by a parliamentary committee. 
 Settlement Apparently the commissioners proceeded to deal 
 f '/'rt d w ^ the forfeited lands in Ireland in the way 
 'lands by adopted by the Parliament in England. A passage 
 meat l ~ i n Whitelock 5 recalls the familiar terms of the 
 process. 
 
 " That the charge of the Survey of a Manner 
 came to 225. 12s. Qd. being 226 Sheets of Paper, 
 and the value of the Manner but 300 per annum, 
 and a life allowed upon it, so at 6 years' purchase, 
 the Reversion came to but 1800, whereof half was 
 in doubled money ; and that with Fees and Charges 
 
 1 Journals, Oct. 4, 1650. 2 Journals. 
 
 3 Journals, Jan. 4, 1650. 4 Clarendon, in. 333. 
 
 5 Memorials, p. 514.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 61 
 
 of Conveyances &c. took off 3 parts of the purchase 
 money." 
 
 Evidently the sale scheme was not working 
 successfully, and it is not difficult to see why. 
 The country had been half depopulated by the 
 twelve years of anarchy. Sir William Petty, pro- 
 bably by far the best contemporary authority, puts 
 the total loss of life between 1641 and 1652 at 
 61 6,000 \ The native population had been ruined, 
 and the country was not inviting for immigrants 
 with capital. 
 
 Ultimately the plan of sale was abandoned, and Cromwell's 
 a much wiser one adopted. The appointment of p 
 Cromwell as Captain-General in Ireland, with power 
 to appoint a deputy 2 , threw the settlement of the 
 question into his hands. He appointed Fleetwood 3 , 
 Ireton being by this time dead. Under Cromwell's 
 auspices the famous " settlement " took place. Only 
 half was accomplished before the dissolution, and the 
 credit or otherwise of the scheme really belongs to the 
 Protectorate. All those who had engaged in the re- 
 bellion of 1641, and many others specially named, are 
 exempted altogether from pardon. The royalists are 
 to be banished and lose two-thirds of their estates, 
 the remaining third, or an equivalent, to be settled 
 on their wives and children. Papists who have not 
 taken an active part in the disturbances are to 
 
 1 Political Anatomy of Ireland, ed. 1691, p. 18. 
 
 a In June 1652. Whitelock, 511. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 513. This appointment gave deadly offence to 
 Lambert, who had been nominated on Ireton's death. (Whitelock, 
 490.)
 
 <32 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 forfeit one-third of their estates and be liable to 
 transplanting from their own locality to another. 
 Persons who have no land, and whose whole person- 
 alty does not amount to 10 in value, are to be 
 pardoned on taking the Engagement 1 . 
 
 The forfeited lauds were disposed of in Septem- 
 ber 1653. Apparently the whole of the claims only 
 amounted to 360,000. There were two classes 
 of claimants, the soldiers, whose pay was in arrear, 
 and the " Adventurers," who had lent money for the 
 war. These were to be satisfied by lot, all sharing 
 proportionately to their claims 2 . The English settled 
 in Connaught were to be entitled to exchange into 
 other provinces. The reserves of the royalists and 
 papists were allotted them in Connaught and Clare 
 County, and any one of them found elsewhere after 
 the settlement had been carried out was to suffer 
 death 3 . From the instructions to the commissioners 
 we get a glimpse of the state to which the anarchy 
 had reduced the country. One thousand acres in 
 Leinster were valued at 600, a similar amount in 
 Munster at 450, and in Ulster at 200 4 . Cromwell 
 was about to try the truth of the doctrine shortly 
 afterwards formally laid down by Harrington, that 
 "such as is the proportion or balance of dominion 
 or property in land, such is the nature of the 
 empire 5 ." Whatever we may think of the morality 
 of the proceeding, its success is unquestioned. There 
 
 1 Act in Scobell, Aug. 12, 1652. 
 
 Act in Scobell, Sep. 26, 1653. 3 Scobell, p. 258. 
 
 4 Scobell, p. 256. Cp. also Political Anatomy, p. 20. 
 
 5 Oceana, p. 18.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 63 
 
 were no more disturbances in Ireland till the so-called 
 Acts of " Explanation " and " Settlement " uprooted 
 the plan. It is fashionable to speak of the Crom- 
 wellian settlement with horror, but it is not easy to 
 suggest an alternative. Any one can see that an 
 attempt to give Ireland autonomy would have 
 resulted in the wildest anarchy. And Cromwell, 
 with whom order was heaven's first law, made no 
 hypocritical pretence of mercy. In the constitution 
 which he afterwards devised, he gave Ireland the 
 opportunity of one day becoming an integral part 
 of the constitution, and he took effectual means to 
 secure the administration of justice, the maintenance 
 of order, and the spread of education. It is difficult 
 to see what else he could have done. 
 
 The settlement of Ireland does not properly 
 belong to the Republican period at all, but as it was 
 partly carried out by the Parliament, it has been 
 thought better to allude to it in this chapter. 
 
 The strength of the Parliament had been its Criticism 
 control of the purse-strings. When it failed in / a 5J^ ar ~ 
 finance, it failed in all. It had quarrelled with its reia- 
 Holland. It had raised a prohibitive barrier against ^? w n lih 
 France 1 . It had taken the same line with Portugal 2 , countries. 
 By espousing the cause of Sweden it had angered Holland - 
 Denmark. Russia had totally rejected any com- po^L ^ 
 munication with it. It had cut the colonies adrift 3 . Denmark. 
 Scotland and Ireland it held down with the sword. 
 The mass of the people it alienated by its bigoted 
 
 1 Whitelock, 405. Scobell, Aug. 28, 1649. 
 
 2 Scobell, Nov. 8, 1650. 
 
 s Whitelock, 458. Scobell, Oct. 3, 1650.
 
 64 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 its enforcement of a hypocritical austerity 1 , and by its 
 
 190 iy ' arbitrary interference with the ordinary course of 
 Its use of law. It prided itself on being a constitutional autho- 
 tutionai ^ty, and it violated every constitutional maxim. It 
 methods, made use of spies and secret intelligence. It gagged 
 press and pulpit. It banished its subjects. It im- 
 prisoned on suspicion and tampered with the ad- 
 ministration of justice. It mortgaged the revenue, 
 and fed its members with the spoil of the enemy. It 
 interfered with commerce. It interfered with the 
 government of the universities. It attempted to 
 repress petitions. It employed the press gang. It 
 was the apparent author of harsh taxation and of 
 still harsher confiscation. The glory of its victory 
 had faded from it, and it remained the embodiment 
 of all that was tyrannical, unjust, and revolutionary. 
 Finally it quarrelled with its only supporter, and it 
 fell unpitied by all men, except a few doctrinaire 
 politicians. "And no sort of people expressed any 
 offence that they were cast out, though all save the 
 army and sectaries, held him to be a traitor that did 
 it 2 ." "And so far as I could discern, when they 
 were dissolved, there was not so much as the 
 barking of a dog, or any general and visible repin- 
 ing at it," said Cromwell afterwards 3 . 
 
 It was probably of the Parliament of 1649 that 
 Harrington was thinking when he wrote his defi- 
 nition of an oligarchy, " which is a single Council 
 both debating and resolving, dividing and choosing," 
 
 1 Scobell, May 19, 1650, June 28, 1650. Whitelock, 434. 
 
 2 Life of Baxter (ed. Calamy), p. 70. 
 
 3 Carlyle, iv. 49. And cf. Whitelock, 530532.
 
 THE REPUBLIC. 65 
 
 and likened it to the Athenian Thirty who " killed 
 more men in eight months than the Lacedemonians 
 had done in ten years ; oppressing the people [to 
 use Sir Walter Raleigh's words] with all base and 
 intolerable slavery 1 ." 
 
 The Parliament had fallen, generally because it 
 was wholly unfitted for the difficult work it was 
 called upon to do, but specially because it did not 
 rest on a sufficient foundation. A government in 
 civilized countries succeeds either by preserving a 
 delicate balance of interests, or by strengthening and 
 broadening its own basis. Had the Parliament pos- 
 sessed the skill required to play off the rival parties it could 
 one against the other, it might have succeeded in ^^ ^ 
 maintaining its position. This is what Cromwell balance, 
 afterwards did, but the quickness and secrecy re- 
 quired for such a fine operation are rarely to be 
 found in a mixed assembly. And the Parliament 
 was fatally incapable of strengthening its basis by nor 
 a generous admission of support. It could not trust 
 any one. Its appointments were all made for very basis - 
 short periods, and in a manner which shewed their 
 temporary character. As a consequence no one cared 
 to prevent its fall. It was an object of interest only 
 to its members. And when it committed the absurd 
 mistake of quarrelling with its only supporter, its 
 fate was sealed. It is generally assumed that its 
 ideal was the Dutch Republic, and there is some 
 evidence to support the hypothesis. But if it 
 thought itself a realization of its ideal, it was 
 deceived. The States- General were not a sovereign 
 
 1 Oceana, p. 70. 
 J. 5
 
 66 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 body, possessing unlimited authority in all matters. 
 They were a federal council founded on a strong 
 local government, and with strictly limited powers. 
 The Dutch Republic was what Milton had in his 
 eye when he wrote his Ready and Easy Way to Esta- 
 blish a Free Commonwealth 1 , but any one can see 
 how different is his plan from that of the Parliament. 
 In fact the House of Commons in 1653 had lost all 
 the essential character of the old House of Commons. 
 It was no longer a House of Communes, a body re- 
 presenting the local interests of the kingdom. It 
 had become strictly a Senate, probably not at all a 
 wise one. And, whether wise or foolish, a Senate, 
 unsupported by a popular body or an independent 
 executive, is a singularly weak government. 
 
 1 Works, n. 783.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 
 
 THE coup d'etat of April 1653 was the work of Cromwell 
 
 left sole 
 Cromwell and his Council of Officers. Its completion authority. 
 
 naturally left the supreme authority in their hands. 
 In fact Cromwell was the only constitutional as well 
 as the chief revolutionary power. He had been 
 appointed by Parliament Captain-General of the 
 forces in England and Ireland, and he had therefore 
 a considerable legal position. His proceedings were 
 marked by great frankness. The names of his Cromwell's 
 Council were published in the newspapers 1 , and, as' council 
 we shall see, the most important acts of government 
 were done in his name. The Council consisted of 
 eight officers, Major-Generals Lambert, Harrison, 
 Desborough, and Tomlinson, Colonels Stapley, 
 Bennet, Sydenham, and Jones, and four civilians 
 Sir Gilbert Pickering, Strickland, Gary and Moyer. 
 The subordinate officials, and even the commission- 
 ers appointed by the Parliament, recognized its autho- 
 rity 2 . The Council chose Lambert its first weekly Lambert 
 president, and began its regular sittings on April pre 
 
 1 Cromwelliana, 129. - Whitelock, 530. 
 
 52
 
 68 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 29 *. Monk, Blake, and Fleetwood, the only three 
 officers of the first rank not included in it, were 
 absent from London. Monk was in Scotland, and 
 though he returned in September 2 , having been 
 chosen to sit in the Little Parliament 3 , he seems to 
 have accepted the situation. Blake was fighting 
 the Dutch, and appears to have soon come to that 
 famous resolution of his, to abandon politics and 
 fight only for England's glory. Fleetwood was in 
 Ireland, Lord Deputy on Cromwell's appointment. 
 
 Cromwell was far too wise to suppose that Eng- 
 land could be governed by a Council of thirteen. 
 But he was equally convinced that the country was 
 not yet sufficiently calm for an election. He re- 
 cognized that there were essential prerequisites of 
 a parliamentary representation which did not then 
 exist. Anxious, much too anxious, as he was to 
 have the support of a Parliament, the facts were too 
 strong for him as yet. The political interest and 
 intelligence necessary to a satisfactory election were 
 there in abundance, but the equally essential temper 
 of compromise, the willingness to abide by the 
 decision of the vote, to observe the rules of the 
 game, was wanting. And parliamentary machinery 
 is only workable on these terms. 
 
 Cromwell So Cromwell determined to call a Great Council, 
 
 to call an similar in idea to the pre-parliamentary Councils 
 
 Assembly. o f fa e Angevin kings, but summoned on a different 
 
 principle. The Councils of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 
 centuries had been feudal assemblies, founded on 
 
 1 Calendar, v. 300, 301. 2 Cromwelliana, p. 130. 
 
 3 Journals, Oct. 1, 1653.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 09 
 
 the principle of land tenure, which itself represented 
 the older principle of military service. The early 
 kings, anxious as many of them were to broaden 
 the basis of their rule, recognized the fact that that 
 rule was really based on military strength. It is 
 possible that Cromwell did not see, or did not wish 
 to see, that the same law held in his case. Accord- 
 ingly he laid aside the purely military principle, and 
 determined to adopt another. 
 
 The victory of Puritanism had been secured by Character 
 religious enthusiasm, and more especially by the Astembly. 
 religious enthusiasm which took the form of Inde- 
 pendency. The main body of the New Model was 
 Independent, it steered clear between the luke- 
 warmness of Presbyterianism and the fanaticism of 
 the Anabaptists and other extreme bodies. It was, 
 accordingly, on Independency that Cromwell in- 
 tended to rely. 
 
 On May 27 he announced his intention of sum- The 
 
 i_ j f t i r\ T o summons. 
 
 momng a body of select persons . On June 8, 
 
 after consultation with the principal Independent 
 ministers, he issued a number of summonses, about 
 140 in all, to the persons they recommended. The 
 summons itself is remarkable for plainness and brevity. 
 The persons named have been nominated by the 
 Captain-General with the advice of his Council of 
 Officers, the dissolution of the late Parliament having 
 rendered it necessary that the peace, safety, and good 
 government of the Commonwealth should be pro- 
 vided for. They are summoned by Cromwell, on 
 his own authority, to appear at the Council Chamber 
 1 Whitelock, 531.
 
 70 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 on July 4 next, to take upon them such trust. The 
 summons is signed and sealed by Cromwell alone 1 . 
 
 But the plan of the Council did not adhere 
 strictly to the principle of religious enthusiasm. It 
 combined the elements of locality and wealth. 
 Each summons specified the constituency (if such it 
 could be called) for which the recipient was to sit. 
 Thirty-six counties had each its quota of distinct 
 councillors, the four northern counties, Northumber- 
 land, Durham, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, were 
 grouped together in one constituency. There were 
 no "boroughs" except London, which had four re- 
 presentatives, Wales and Ireland stood for six each, 
 Scotland for five 2 . Moreover the number of names 
 for the thirty-six counties was by no means equal, 
 the differences being accounted for by Ludlow 8 on 
 the ground that they represent an arrangement upon 
 a taxation basis. There were very few distinguished 
 names. Monk sat for Devon, Blake for Somerset, 
 Ashley Cooper for Wilts, Walter Strickland for York, 
 and Alderman Ireton for London. 
 
 CromwelVs The Assembly of Nominees met on the appointed 
 day a * Whitehall, and was inaugurated by Cromwell, 
 following strict historical precedent, by a sermon or 
 discourse, the first of those remarkable speeches from 
 which we learn so much of the character of the 
 Protector and his age 4 . In it his views appear in 
 a very striking way. He reminds the Assembly of 
 the change wrought in the army by the Self-denying 
 
 1 Whitelock, 532. Cromwelliana, 125. 
 
 2 See list of members in Somers Tracts, vi. 248. 
 
 3 Memoirs, n. 463. 4 Carlyle, in. 202230.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 71 
 
 Ordinance l , the turning-point of the straggle, boldly 
 justifies his dissolution of the late Parliament 2 , and 
 recommends to their consideration, as the immedi- 
 ately pressing necessities of the times, the settlement 
 of the religious question 3 , provision for the army 
 and navy 4 , and the choice of a Council of State 5 . 
 It is not quite easy to see in what light Cromwell 
 regarded the Assembly. In his discourse he speaks 
 of himself as " one who hath now called you to the 
 exercise of the supreme authority 6 ," and all along he 
 seems inclined to treat his own government as tem- 
 porary. On the other hand, he had drawn up a 
 constitution or " Instrument," to which he alludes in 
 the speech 7 , and which, though its exact terms do 
 not survive, appears to have provided that the 
 Assembly should not sit beyond November 3, and 
 that three months before its dissolution it should 
 make arrangements for the summoning of its suc- 
 cessors, who were not to sit for longer than a year, 
 and were likewise to continue the succession 8 . But 
 there is one passage in the speech which shews 
 clearly Cromwell's hankering after a regularly elected 
 Parliament, together with his conviction of its im- 
 possibility at the present time. "If it were a time 
 to compare your standing with those that have been 
 
 1 Carlyle, in. 203. 
 
 2 Carlyle, ni. 205 216. An account which probably contains 
 the truth of the matter. 
 
 3 Carlyle, in. 221. * Carlyle, in. 229. 
 5 Carlyle, in. 230. 6 Carlyle, in. 218. 
 
 7 Carlyle, in. 229. And cf. mention in Journals, July 4 and 
 5, 1653. 
 
 8 Coke, Detection, p. 373. Whitelock, 534.
 
 72 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 called by the Suffrages of the People, which who 
 can tell how soon God may fit the People for such a 
 thing ? None can desire it more than I 1 ." Here 
 we have a definite view of Cromwell's political 
 philosophy. He was probably well aware of the way 
 in which Parliament had originally grown up. He 
 was a student of history. He had urged its study 
 on his son Richard 2 , and in this very speech 3 he tells 
 us how he and the officers in their conferences with 
 the late Parliament " had been labouring to get 
 precedents to convince them" of the advisability of 
 summoning such an assembly as this. If so, Crom- 
 well saw, what was undoubtedly the fact, that the 
 England of 1653 was not an old organism, but a 
 new, a civilization which had just thrown off its 
 feudal form, and was in the birth throes of a new 
 existence. And he saw, consequently, that it was 
 the simpler, and not the more complex form of 
 government, that was needed. 
 
 Conduct Immediately upon entering on its work the 
 
 Assembly. Assembly took the very wise step of inviting to its 
 membership Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, and 
 Desborough *, the only four members of the interim 
 Council who had not been summoned to it. By this 
 move it prevented any conflict between the executive 
 and consultative, at least for a time. 
 
 it assumes But its next proceeding was less fortunate. The 
 
 of Parlia- members were apparently puzzled to know in what 
 
 ment ' capacity they found themselves, and solved the 
 
 difficulty by deciding that they were a Parliament, 
 
 1 Carlyle, in. 224. - Carlyle, n. 255. 
 
 3 Carlyle, in. 214. 4 Cromwelliana, 129.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 73 
 
 possessed of full parliamentary powers and privileges, 
 and that they would thenceforth occupy the historic 
 House \ This was a huge mistake, for it was at 
 once contradictory to fact and feeling. It led them 
 to suppose that they could safely exercise all the 
 arbitrary powers of the Long Parliament, and at the 
 same time pointed them out as the successors, with 
 all the old inadequacy, of that unpopular body. Had 
 they acted strictly as a Council, or advising body, 
 they would probably have done well, for their in- 
 tentions were excellent, and their intelligence great, 
 but they had not the experience necessary for a 
 Parliament, they were deficient in knowledge of the 
 world, and, as claiming to be a representative body, 
 they were clearly usurpers. The absence of a 
 Parliament the nation would probably have borne 
 with equanimity, at least for a time, but the existence 
 of a sham Parliament was a mockery. However, a 
 Parliament they styled themselves, and we may as 
 well style them henceforth, in accordance with 
 custom, the "Little Parliament." 
 
 On July 14 they proceeded to elect a Council A new 
 of State, the thirteen of the interim Council, and 
 seventeen more, all of whom, with the exception 
 of Fleetwood 2 , were of their own members. This 
 Council was to sit till November 3 s , nine (after - 
 
 1 Journals, July 6 and 7, 1653. Somers Tracts, vi. 269. 
 
 2 Somers Tracts, vi. 251, makes this Fleetwood to be Alderman 
 George Fleetwood, member for London. But the Journals (July 
 14, 1653) describe him as Lord General Fleetwood, and George 
 Fleetwood was elected as a new member on Nov. 1, 1653 (Journals). 
 The "Broughton " of the Tracts is probably "Barton." 
 
 3 Burton, i. ii.
 
 74 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 wards reduced to seven 1 ) to be a quorum. The 
 instructions were practically the same as those of 
 the old Council of State appointed by the Long 
 Parliament in 1649 2 . Committees were also ap- 
 pointed for Scotland and Ireland. On November 1, 
 a new Council was elected in the usual way. Half 
 the members of the expiring Council were re-elected, 
 and the other seats filled up by new members from 
 the Parliament 3 . The new Council was to sit for 
 six months. 
 
 Finance. Thus the Little Parliament had accomplished 
 
 one of the three tasks appointed it by the opening 
 speech. The financial duty it performed by sanc- 
 tioning an assessment at the rate of 120,000 a 
 month for six months from Dec. 25, 1653*. 
 
 But the third task proved fatal to its existence. 
 After passing a Marriage Act 5 , which, unpopular 
 though it was 6 , was probably very necessary, and 
 voting to abolish Chancery 7 , a vote which was carried 
 into effect by actual suspension of the Court for a 
 month on October 17 8 , they turned to settle the 
 
 Religion, religious question. On Nov. 19, they ordered an Act 
 to be brought in to abolish rights of patronage 9 , but 
 the committee appointed to investigate the matter 
 refused to recommend the abolition of tithes, 
 
 1 Journals, July 15, 1653. 2 Journals, July 14, 1653. 
 
 8 Cromwelliana, p. 130. Whitelock, 549. 
 
 4 Scobell, Dec. 24, 1653. 
 
 Whitelock, 544. Scobell, Nov. 24, 1653. 
 
 6 See Hargraves, /State Trials, n. 501. 
 
 7 Whitelock, 543. Burton, i. vi. Journals, Aug. 5, 1653. 
 
 8 Journals. 
 
 9 Whitelock, 550. Burton, i. xiv.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 75 
 
 though it advised the creation of a commission to 
 eject scandalous ministers 1 . Hereupon, in some Suicide 
 mysterious way, never yet fully explained, the 
 Parliament conceived the idea of suicide. The 
 Journals merely shew that the last week was occupied 
 in discussing the question of tithes. The account of 
 the proceedings of the 13th says that the motion for 
 dissolution was proposed and "seconded by several 
 other Members ; the House rose. And the Speaker, 
 with many of the Members of the House, departed 
 out of the House to Whitehall ; where they, being 
 the greater Number of the Members sitting in 
 Parliament, did by a writing under their Hands, 
 resign unto his Excellency their said powers V The 
 resignation was accepted, and the dissolution con- 
 sidered accomplished. 
 
 The main defect of the Little Parliament appears Criticism 
 to have been want of courage. Their projected ^^ 
 reforms were admirably conceived, but the reformers Pariia- 
 were frightened by the vested interests which they 
 aroused. Some of the members were army officers, but 
 a great number were timid civilians. Here was Crom- 
 well's mistake. It was true that he owed his position 
 to the churches, but then it was to the churches mili- 
 tant. During the war the religious enthusiasts who 
 had really the courage of their opinions had volun- 
 teered into the army. It was in the army therefore 
 that the backbone of religious enthusiasm was to be 
 found. His conservative weakness for the appearance 
 of legality had marred Cromwell's Assembly of No- 
 tables ; he had introduced the old leaven of constitu- 
 1 Whitelock, 551. 2 Journals, Nov. 13, 1653.
 
 76 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 tionalism into his new lump of enthusiasm, and the old 
 leaven had prevailed. An Assembly chosen from the 
 army might have been unwise in many things, but it 
 would not have made Cromwell's government appear 
 ridiculous. 
 
 The alacrity with which the interlude of the 
 Little Parliament was succeeded by a scheme which 
 was evidently intended to be permanent, may raise 
 a suspicion that the suicidal Assembly had not been 
 left entirely to follow its own inclinations. On 
 December 16 * was published a document, known as 
 
 The the "Instrument of Government," which contained 
 
 menTof a new constitution. 
 
 Govern- It is pretty certain that the Little Parliament 
 
 had nothing to do with the framing of the " Instru- 
 ment 2 ,'' though some of them might have heard of its 
 existence. A general concurrence of testimony attri- 
 butes its authorship to the Council of Officers 3 , and 
 internal evidence strongly supports the conclusion. 
 Cromwell himself 4 expressly denied any share in it. 
 By its provisions 6 the supreme legislative authority 
 was vested in Cromwell as Lord Protector, and a 
 Parliament 6 which was not to be intermitted at any 
 time for more than three years, and which was to sit for 
 at least five months upon every summons 7 . The 
 Protector was, however, only to have a suspensive, 
 
 1 Cromwelliana, 130. Coke, Detection, 378. 
 
 2 Burton, in. 568. Speech of Sir Arthur Haselrig. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 552. England's Confusion, Somers Tracts, vi. 
 528. Calendar, vi. 301. The Hypocrite Unmasked, T. P. xvii. 
 307. 
 
 4 Carlyle, iv. 53. B Cf. Whitelock, 552. 
 6 Art. i. ? Art. v.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 77 
 
 not an absolute, veto on legislation \ (The scheme 
 of the Parliament will be examined later on.) The 
 executive was entrusted to the Protector and a 
 Council to consist of not less than 13 and not more 
 than 21 2 , vacancies to be filled up by a joint process 
 of selection by Parliament, Council, and Protector 3 . 
 The Protector was to have the appointment of 
 magistrates 4 , and the command of the forces, but the 
 consent of Parliament or, in its absence, of the 
 Council, was to be obtained to the disposal of the 
 troops 5 . In case of war Parliament was to be 
 immediately summoned, and at any time the Pro- 
 tector might, with the advice of his Council, summon 
 an extraordinary Parliament, to be indissoluble for 
 three months 6 . A revenue of 200,000 was to be 
 settled for the ordinary expenses of government, 
 exclusive of the standing army of 30,000 and the 
 navy 7 . Future Protectors were to be chosen by the 
 Council 8 . A ministry was to be established, but 
 liberty of conscience was to be allowed to all Chris- 
 tians except papists and prelatists 9 . In the absence 
 of Parliament the Protector was empowered to make 
 ordinances, with the consent of the Council 10 . 
 
 This is evidently a very different thing from import- 
 previous efforts. Several important points mark it ^f !. 
 as a distinct advance towards a settlement. strument. 
 
 In the first place it realizes in its main outlines 
 the policy of the army. A comparison of the 
 
 1 Art. xxiv. 2 Art. u. 3 Art. xxv. 
 
 4 Art. in. 5 Art. rv. 6 Art. vm. 
 
 7 Art. xxvn. 8 Art. xxxn. 9 Art. xxxv. xxxvin. 
 10 Art. xxx.
 
 78 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Expresses Instrument with the two editions of the Agreement 
 of the ' f tf ie People shews that the most important features 
 army. o f the army scheme are preserved. There are fixed 
 periods for the summoning of Parliaments, provisions 
 against sudden dissolution, and a Council acting 
 independently during the absence of Parliament, 
 while the essentials of the electoral system are the 
 same. The maintenance of a " preaching ministry," 
 together with freedom of worship for all except 
 Catholics and Episcopalians, is provided for. The 
 special aversion of the army, the filling of official 
 posts by members of the Parliament, is guarded 
 against by giving the Protector the right to make 
 all appointments. The continuance of the army on a 
 moderate footing is secured. From the publication of 
 the Instrument of Government I think we may date 
 the satisfaction of the bulk of the army with the 
 settlement, and, consequently, the beginning of 
 Cromwell's settled power. Its chief provisions 
 remained intact during Oliver's lifetime, and, except 
 for the question about the Crown, he had no serious 
 difficulty with the army. 
 
 Angers the g a t the Instrument of Government marked 
 
 Republi- . . 
 
 cans. another momentous achievement. By creating, or 
 
 recognizing, a permanent executive power, of vast 
 constitutional authority, totally independent of the 
 Parliament for its existence, it shattered the dreams 
 of the Republicans, and sank their darling assembly 
 to a second or even third rank in the constitution. It 
 was not to be expected that such a slight would pass 
 unnoticed. Four days after the publication of the 
 Instrument a petition was presented by Colonels
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 79 
 
 Saunders, Okey, and Alured, complaining of the 
 great military and fiscal power given to Cromwell 
 by the scheme 1 . And in the prophesyings of the 
 Fifth-Monarchy men, he was freely denounced as the 
 " little horn " spoken of by Daniel 2 . Major-General 
 Harrison even refused to acknowledge the govern- 
 ment. But its supporters were too strong for the 
 malcontents, and Cromwell was duly inaugurated, 
 with some decent ceremony, on Dec. 16, 1653 s . 
 
 The establishment of a central personal au- Its neces- 
 . . . , , . T 1 sity at the 
 
 thority with great immediate powers was the one juncture. 
 
 thing needed for England at this time. Ques- 
 tions which a mixed assembly would never have 
 settled were dealt with simply and effectively by 
 Cromwell and his Council. By the terms of the 
 Instrument the first Protectorate Parliament was not 
 to meet till September 3, 1654, or nearly nine 
 months from the commencement of the government, 
 and the Protector had, as was mentioned, practically 
 unlimited power in the meantime to issue ordinances. 
 With a Council on whom he could rely, Lambert, 
 Desborough, Skippon, Sydenham, and Pickering its 
 leading members 4 , he set vigorously to work, and, Cromwell's 
 before the Parliament met, had solved the worst pro- %retfie 
 blems. The parliamentary commissioners in Ireland assembly 
 were recalled 5 and were replaced by the Deputy and a ment. 
 Council, with abundant powers, but yet with sufficient Ireland. 
 checks to prevent them being tyrannical. The Irish 
 policy was decided. The English laws were to be en- 
 
 1 Calendar, vi. 302. 2 Calendar, vi. 304. 
 
 3 Cromwelliana, 130. 4 Calendar, vi. 298. 
 
 5 Whitelock, 581.
 
 80 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 forced, and papists, delinquents, and disaffected persons 
 were to be rigorously excluded from all official employ- 
 ment. But amongst Protestants preachers of all sects 
 were to be maintained, education provided for, Justice 
 to be strictly administered, and the revenue carefully 
 fostered l . By giving permission to all Irish soldiers 
 to transfer their services to foreign courts, Cromwell 
 effected a master stroke of policy which delivered the 
 island from 40,000 disaffected ruffians who would 
 have been a standing source of danger 2 . The 
 Thurloe papers shew how vigorously this policy 
 was carried out 3 , and Charles' hope that these 
 emigrants might form the nucleus of a royalist army 
 was never realized. There were enormous diffi- 
 culties still to be overcome. The old Protestants of 
 Elizabeth's and James' plantations did not welcome 
 the Protestants of the Cromwellian Settlement 4 , and 
 at first the land debentures by which the settlement 
 was effected only realized 25 per cent, of their nominal 
 value 5 . But firmness at last triumphed, and even 
 Sir William Petty, no friend to Cromwell's govern- 
 ment, is obliged to admit 6 the steady increase in 
 domestic prosperity from the time of the settlement. 
 Later on we shall see from the undeniable testimony 
 of the revenue that this admission is only just. 
 Scotland. Happily there was less necessity for rigour in 
 the case of Scotland. In August 1653 the Scotch 
 
 1 Thurloe, n. 5069. 2 Clarendon, in. 278. 
 
 3 Thurloe, n. 308. 
 
 4 Political Anatomy of Ireland, 43. 
 8 Political Anatomy of Ireland, 20. 
 6 Political Anatomy of Ireland, 89.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 81 
 
 deputies formally presented their suggestions for a 
 settlement 1 . They recommended an abatement of 
 the proposed "cess" or monthly assessment, the 
 establishment of courts of justice, the removal of 
 sequestrations, and a provision for the debts of 
 sequestered persons, the erection of a Mint, and the 
 payment of debts due on the public faith. On April 
 12, Cromwell published three ordinances dealing 
 with the matter. The first contained a liberal 
 pardon for all political offences, except in the cases 
 of a few prominent noblemen, and even in these 
 instances a fair provision was allowed for their wives 
 and children. By the second, England and Scotland 
 were united under one government, trade between 
 the two countries was made absolutely free, and the 
 regulations for foreign trade put on the same footing 
 for both countries. Equal taxation was promised. 
 All the old feudal dues, services, marriages, and 
 forfeitures, were abolished. The third ordinance 
 appointed Courts Baron for every manor, with a 
 jurisdiction up to forty shillings in cases of contract 
 and in all trespasses where title to the freehold was 
 not in question 2 . Soon after the publication of 
 these ordinances we find Monk back again in Edin- 
 burgh 3 , there, doubtless, inaugurating that system of 
 wise and firm government, in which he was after- 
 wards so ably seconded by Broghill, and which won 
 from the royalist bishop Burnet the frank confession 
 " There was good justice done, and vice was sup- 
 pressed and punished; so that we always reckon those 
 
 1 Journals, Aug. 10, 1653. 
 
 * Ordinances in Scobell, April 12, 1654. 3 Whitelock, 573. 
 
 J. 6
 
 82 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 eight years of usurpation a time of peace and pros- 
 perity 1 ." 
 
 The The difficult question of the religious establish- 
 
 vlestiZn. ment was also promptly met. On March 20, 1654, 
 an ordinance was issued 2 appointing a commission of 
 ministers to approve of candidates for livings, and 
 five months later, on the eve of the Parliament, a 
 second ordinance appointed a commission or com- 
 missions for the trial and ejectment of scandalous 
 ministers 3 . The only records of proceedings under 
 these ordinances that I have seen 4 are evidently the 
 work of violent partizans, and are wholly untrust- 
 worthy. For the success of the first we may again 
 take the brief testimony of one of Cromwell's most 
 conscientious opponents, Richard Baxter 5 . 
 Chancet-y. Also the Protector reformed the Court of Chan- 
 cery by an ordinance which is too technical and 
 minute in its application to form part of constitu- 
 tional history, but which is a most striking vindication 
 of the foresight of Cromwell or his servants. Many 
 improvements, which had to wait for their realization 
 till the Reform period, were projected by this remark- 
 able ordinance, and had it been allowed to remain 
 in force there can be little doubt that the accumu- 
 lated abuses of the Court of Chancery, of which 
 Lord Eldon is the popular incarnation, would not 
 have burdened the country for another century and 
 a half 6 . 
 
 1 History of His own Time, 8th ed. (1833), i. 112. 
 
 2 In Scobell. 3 Scobell, Aug. 30, 1654. 
 
 4 In Hargraves' State Trials, n. 217. 
 
 5 Life, i. 69 (ed. by Calamy, 1713). 
 
 6 Ordinance in Scobell, Aug. 21, 1654.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 83 
 
 Abroad Cromwell was no less successful. On Foreign 
 April 26, 1654, a peace was proclaimed with the Pohc y- 
 States 1 , which secured to England everything for The 
 which she had fought, and in which Cromwell 
 succeeded in procuring the insertion of secret articles, 
 though signed only by Holland and West Friesland 2 , 
 excluding the family of Orange from power for ever. 
 In June Whitelock returned from an embassy to Sweden. 
 Sweden about which he is as wearisome as Cicero 
 over the Catilinarian conspiracy, having concluded a 
 satisfactory peace 3 . The quarrel with Denmark had Denmark. 
 been patched up 4 . A treaty had been made with 
 Portugal 5 , and France and Spain were rivalling each Portugal. 
 other for the Protector's favour. The colonies had The 
 returned to their allegiance, and had actually offered co 
 to assist Cromwell in his schemes against Spain". 
 Mr Francis Yardley had received a free surrender for 
 the use of the Commonwealth of the territory of 
 South Carolina 7 . This was a changed aspect from 
 the time of the Republic. 
 
 But the real crisis was yet to come. On Sept. 3, The first 
 
 Protecto- 
 
 in accordance with the terms of the Instrument, the ra te Par- 
 first Protectorate Parliament met. Every effort had Iiament - 
 been made to avoid difficulties. Forms of election 
 indentures had been printed and sent down to the 
 
 1 Whitelock, 572. (He was absent from England at the time, 
 but the fact is notorious.) 
 
 2 Coke, Detection, 382. Clarendon however expressly says 
 (in. 382), that the Great Seal of the States was affixed to this 
 article. 
 
 3 Cromwelliana, 145. 4 Cromwelliana, 141. 
 5 Cromwelliana, 157. B Thurloe, n. 419. 
 
 7 Thurloe, n. 273. 
 
 (> 2
 
 84 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 sheriffs 1 . The sheriffs' returns had been duly ex- 
 amined by the Council 2 , and ordinances had been 
 published regulating the distribution of seats in 
 Scotland and Ireland 3 . These ordinances are riot 
 given by Scobell, but the result of them appears 
 elsewhere. 
 
 It was in many respects a remarkable Parliament. 
 For the first time since the main features of the 
 system had been settled in the year 1295, there was 
 a conscious attempt at reform on a great scale. The 
 election statutes of the Lancastrian era can hardly 
 be said to have done more than settle details, and 
 the withdrawal from the full Parliament of the 
 clerical proctors at an early date, the admission of the 
 Welsh members in 1536, and the disappearance of the 
 mitred abbots at the dissolution of the monasteries, 
 were scarcely intended as steps in parliamentary 
 reform. Such conscious dealing as there had been 
 had been corrupt. The practice of granting parlia- 
 mentary rights by charter, begun by Edward IV., had 
 been continued with the worst results by the Tudors 
 and the Stuarts. At the end of Charles' reign there 
 had been 413 members for the boroughs, as against 
 92 for the counties. And of these 413 the great 
 majority sat for towns in the south and west of 
 England, which were then becoming the most back- 
 ward and the least active in the country. There 
 were eighteen Tudor boroughs in Cornwall alone, 
 where the officers of the duchy fostered the interest 
 of the Crown. Eight had been created or restored 
 
 1 Whitelock, 574. 2 Whitelock, 581. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 575.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 85 
 
 by Tudors in Hampshire, seven in Devonshire by 
 Edward VI. and Charles. Wiltshire alone had six- 
 teen boroughs. The unfairness of the distribution 
 had been palpably admitted by Charles when he 
 issued his shipmoney writs. Wiltshire with its 
 sixteen boroughs was rated only for 224 men, while 
 Essex, with its eight, stood at 256. Cornwall escaped 
 with 176, Lincoln paid for 256. 
 
 The Instrument changed all this. The borough The 
 members were reduced from 413 to 135. Cornwall 
 was given four boroughs only, Wiltshire three instead 
 of sixteen, Dorsetshire four instead of nine, Somerset- 
 shire five instead of eight. The rising towns of 
 Halifax, Leeds. Manchester, and Whitby, were en- 
 franchised. The villages of Old Sarum, Wootton 
 Basset, Cricklade, Lostwithiel, Saltash, Ripon, Hey- 
 don, Boroughbridge, and a host of others, were 
 deprived of their members. All the Welsh boroughs 
 except Haverfordwest and Cardiff were disfranchised. 
 Most of those that remained had to be content with 
 one member each. 
 
 The 238 county seats were divided in accordance 
 with the wealth and population of the counties. 
 Yorkshire received fourteen (split up into her three 
 Ridings), Essex thirteen, Devon and Kent eleven each. 
 Many counties only got two members, Merioneth only 
 one. 
 
 This was, as has been said, very much the scheme 
 of the Agreement of the People. That scheme had 
 been composed, apparently, in haste, for the arrange- 
 ment of the counties is evidently that of a compiler 
 who has drawn his finger across the map from side
 
 86 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 to side, without thinking of any better order. It 
 was imperfect, for it only disposed of 351 out of the 
 400 seats, and it made no provision for Scotland or 
 Ireland. 
 
 The neu- But in one important point the new scheme 
 
 franchise. differed from that of the army The Agreement of 
 
 the People had proposed an uniform household 
 franchise. The Instrument provided an equally 
 uniform basis of property qualification, 200 in land 
 or personalty. The old franchise in the counties had 
 been for England and Ireland an income of forty 
 shillings from freeholds, and in Scotland a similar 
 sum from " land of old extent." In the boroughs the 
 greatest anomalies prevailed. What originally the 
 common basis was, if ever there was a common basis, 
 is a matter of dispute amongst antiquarians. Some- 
 times the whole of the inhabitants " paying scot and 
 lot" exercised electoral privileges. Sometimes the 
 latter were attached to the ownership of particular 
 tenements. Very frequently, especially in the charter 
 boroughs, the members of the corporation claimed 
 exclusive rights. The Scotch boroughs elected their 
 members by a process of double election. These 
 anomalies were swept altogether away by the new 
 scheme, and it cannot be doubted that the borough- 
 electorate was the wholesomer for the change. But 
 the county franchise had been uniform since 1430 1 , 
 and if, as has recently been suggested 2 , it had also at 
 one time been in an equally anomalous condition with 
 
 1 8 Hen. VI., c. 7. 
 
 2 Cf. article entitled The Suitors of the County Court. English 
 Historical Review, xr. 417.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 87 
 
 the borough system, these anomalies no longer re- 
 mained. The Instrument, therefore, by trebling or 
 quadrupling the qualification, and excluding life 
 tenants altogether, doubtless deprived many of a 
 privilege which they now valued highly. Possibly 
 it was thought that the poorer classes in the counties 
 were too royalist to be trusted, even with the exclu- 
 sion of active royalists from all rights during four 
 Parliaments 1 . 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that the English 
 elections were tampered with, in fact it is difficult to 
 see how they could have been. The elections took 
 place before November, consequently the sheriffs 
 were not of Cromwell's appointment, and there was 
 no local military authority, as there was at the next 
 election, to influence the constituencies. 
 
 But the same can hardly be said of Scotland and The Scotch 
 Ireland. The Scotch ordinance had apparently given 
 
 twenty seats to the counties, and the remaining ten tampered 
 
 11 1 mi 1 With. 
 
 to the boroughs. Ihe thirty counties were arranged 
 in ten groups of unequal numbers, each with two 
 members. Sometimes the entire group seems to 
 have voted solidly, sometimes, as in the case of 
 Elginshire, with its associates of Nairn, Banff and 
 Aberdeen, the constituency was divided into two 
 distinct sections. Amongst the boroughs, Edinburgh 
 sent two members, and the remaining fifty-six were 
 arranged in eight groups, returning one member 
 
 1 It must be remembered that the supporters of the Eump 
 distinctly claimed the credit of the scheme of Reform. They 
 asserted that Cromwell carried off the engrossed Act from the 
 dissolution of 1653. Cf. Ludlow, n. 435, 458.
 
 88 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 each 1 . The names returned shew that a free choice 
 cannot have been exercised. The constituencies 
 were not indeed all full. "Five SherifFedomes in 
 Scotland Returned ; that not one fit to be a Parlia- 
 ment Man, was to be found within their liberty 2 ." 
 But the record is sufficient. Of the twenty-one mem- 
 bers who can be traced, eight were parliamentarian 
 officers: that is to say, more than a third of the 
 representation was composed of the actual wielders 
 of a military force over a conquered country 3 . 
 
 The case of Ireland is still plainer. Counties and 
 cities are there arranged in groups, making thirteen 
 constituencies in all. Of the twenty-four names 
 which come to hand in Thurloe 4 , only three, Sir 
 Robert King, Sir John Temple, and Mr Gookin, are 
 not those of military officers, and Gookin was one of 
 the notables in the Little Parliament, and was 
 afterwards employed on official business 5 . 
 
 Conduct of The history of this Parliament is verv well known, 
 
 Vie Par- . . * 
 
 liament. and it is not very pleasant. It declined altogether 
 
 Refuses to to accept the constitution under which it was called, 
 Comtitu- an d treated the Instrument merely as a draft to be 
 pulled to pieces and amended. Cromwell had 
 opened it with a speech in which, after a modest 
 but dignified account of his government since the 
 disappearance of the Little Parliament, he had 
 
 1 Calendar, vi. 1979. 
 
 2 Whitelock, 581. 
 
 3 Old Parliamentary History, xx. 306, 307. 
 
 4 Thurloe, n. 447. There are one or two more names given in 
 the Old Parliamentary History (xx. 307, 308). 
 
 5 Thurloe, v. 646. This is Vincent Gookin. Another Gookin, 
 Daniel, was also an official, in Barbadoes (Thurloe, iv. 441, 449).
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 89 
 
 addressed to the members a pathetic appeal for 
 union and forbearance. They promptly responded 
 by administering a sharp reproof to Scobell for 
 sitting as clerk by the Protector's patent, and by 
 debating for three whole days whether they would 
 recognise "Government by a single person" at all 1 . 
 "In this Debate," says Ludlow 2 , "Sir Arthur Haselrig, 
 Mr Scott and many others, especially the Lord Presi- 
 dent Bradshaw, were very instrumental in opening 
 the Eyes of many young Members who had never 
 before heard their Interest so clearly stated and 
 asserted." Possibly. But it was not to be supposed 
 that a ruler of Cromwell's strength and conviction 
 would allow his authority to be questioned by his 
 own creatures. Accordingly, after a week spent in The 
 debate, the House was summoned to meet the 
 Protector. In a wonderful speech, a compound of 
 really irresistible logic and suppressed indignation, 
 he put the facts before them. He reminded them 
 how by every possible acknowledgment, army, city, 
 counties, and towns, the new constitution had been 
 recognised, that their very presence in Parliament, 
 after elections at which the Instrument had been 
 formally published, was itself a recognition. He 
 admitted freely their right, as the supreme legislative 
 authority, to make any laws not inconsistent with 
 the essentials of the constitution. But as to the 
 "Fundamentals," "government by a single person 
 and Parliament," liberty of conscience, the command 
 of the forces, with these there was to be no tampering. 
 " These may not be parted with ; but will, I trust, 
 1 Burton (Goddard), i. xxi. xxvi. 2 Memoirs, n. 500.
 
 90 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 be delivered over to posterity, as the fruits of our 
 blood and travail 1 ." The altering of which "I can 
 sooner be willing to be rolled into my grave and 
 buried with infamy, than I can give my consent 
 unto 2 ." And then he told them that none would 
 be allowed to sit again who did not sign a formal 
 recognition of the constitution. 
 
 The subsequent conduct of the Parliament re- 
 quires that this recognition should be stated at full 
 length, in order that the issue between the parties 
 may be fairly judged. It was as follows 
 
 " I do hereby freely promise and engage, that I 
 will be true and faithful to the Lord Protector and 
 the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
 and that according to the tenor of the Indenture 
 whereby I am returned to serve in this present Par- 
 liament, I will not propose, or consent to alter the 
 government as it is settled in a sole person and the 
 Parliament 3 .'"' 
 
 It is not exactly known how many members 
 accepted these conditions. About 100 agreed at 
 once, and a little later a good many more 4 . After 
 this date the House rarely divides above 200, gene- 
 rally about 150 5 . But later on, when the Instrument 
 had been revised and voted clause by clause, 300 
 copies were ordered to be printed, one for each 
 member 6 . Still, none were readmitted who did not 
 sign. 
 
 1 Carlyle, iv. 60. 2 Carlyle, iv. 65. 
 
 3 Burton, i. xxxv. Whitelock, 587. 
 
 4 Burton, i. xxxv. B Journals. 
 6 Burton, i. cxiv.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 91 
 
 Two days after this episode, the House came to 
 the resolution that this recognition only extended to 
 the first article of the Instrument, viz. that the 
 supreme legislative authority should be vested in the 
 Protector and Parliament 1 . Thereupon confusion 
 arose again. The House began to dissect the In- 
 strument and vote it clause by clause, with amend- 
 ments. In some respects they were more liberal to 
 Cromwell than the officers had been. They offered 
 him a shadowy negative upon certain points 2 . The} r 
 voted to allow him to raise a million a year for the 
 pay of the forces 3 , subsequently altering this, how- 
 ever, to a permanent allowance of 400,000 a year 
 for navy and garrisons, and 700,000 for five years 
 for the land forces 4 . But there was such an evident 
 desire to make alterations, and to assert the sole 
 authority of the House, that these conciliations were 
 deprived of all value. And in other respects the 
 conduct of the House was outrageous. It questioned 
 the Acts of the Little Parliament 5 . It twice sus- 
 pended the operation of the ordinance for Chancery 
 reform 8 , and committed it for consideration 7 . And 
 as a climax it referred to a committee for examina- 
 tion the whole of the acts and ordinances published 
 since July 3, 1653 8 . Finally it became involved in 
 theological controversies, and after requiring a com- 
 mittee " to consider of the enumeration of damnable 
 
 1 Burton, i. xxxviii. and Journals, Sept. 14, 1654. 
 
 2 Burton, i. Ixxviii. 3 Journals, Jan. 5, 1655. 
 4 Journals, Jan. 16. 5 Burton, i. xxxix. 
 
 6 Journals, Oct. 13 and Nov. 25, 1654. 
 
 7 Burton, i. xlviii. 8 Burton, i. xlix.
 
 92 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 heresies 1 ," it began to vote Articles of Faith one by 
 one 2 . 
 
 The dis- To Cromwell this seemed sheer treachery. In 
 
 on ' his view, by the recognition the House had promised 
 loyally to accept the constitution erected by the 
 Instrument, under which he had acted strictly within 
 his rights by issuing ordinances. When it proceeded 
 to question every act of his government, including 
 his church settlement, it raised the flag of defiance. 
 Accordingly on the earliest possible day, Jan. 22, 
 1655, in a speech of burning indignation, he dissolved 
 the Parliament. It had contributed nothing towards 
 the work of government except by continuing the 
 assessment ordinances in a form which was the 
 offer of a direct bribe to the Protector to prolong its 
 existence 3 . 
 
 The The dissolution of the Parliament was followed 
 
 General ^ v tne execution of a plan which was the most 
 unpopular of all Cromwell's measures, and which 
 is generally treated casually by the books as a mere 
 act of military violence. At the beginning of the 
 year 1655 Cromwell's agents had informed him of 
 the existence of a plot by the royalists, aided by the 
 discontented Levellers, against his government. It 
 was doubtless the knowledge of this plot that made 
 
 1 Burton, i. cxiv. 
 
 2 Journals, Dec. 15, 1654. As this book was going through 
 the press Mr S. R. Gardiner published in his " Constitutional 
 Documents of the Puritan Revolution," p. 352 &c. the text of the 
 Constitutional Bill introduced into the House, and in his Intro- 
 duction LX <fec. has called attention to the differences between it 
 and the Instrument of Government. 
 
 3 Burton, i. xc.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 93 
 
 Cromwell so prompt to dissolve the Parliament, whose 
 existence in its divided state, he considered, rightly 
 or wrongly, an additional source of danger. On 
 February 12 the arrest of Major Wildman, a well- Wildman's 
 known enthusiast, was announced in Mercurius 
 Politicals 1 . Wildman had been seized in the act 
 of dictating a pamphlet entitled A Declaration 
 of the free and well-affected People of England now 
 in Armes against the Tyrant Oliver Cromwell, Esq.' 2 
 The demands of this document, if any meaning can 
 be assigned to them at all, point to a restoration 
 of the Stuarts, and were so taken at the time 3 . The 
 information of an accomplice 4 warned Cromwell that 
 the well-known Anabaptist Colonel Sexby, and pro- 
 bably also Sir Arthur Haselrig, were in the plot. That 
 Sexby and Wildman were in communication with the 
 exiled Court is clear from the evidence of Clarendon 5 . 
 
 The Levelling side of the insurrection was The 
 promptly crushed by the arrest of Wildman, but Ro V aUsts - 
 the royalist discontent broke into open flame. At 
 Salisbury on March 11 the sheriff and judges, Salisbury* 
 there for Assize-business, were seized in their beds 
 by Sir John Pen ruddock and a party of horse acting 
 under Charles' commission 6 . Major W'agstaff, who 
 had come from the Continent on purpose to join 
 the insurrection, proposed to hang the sheriff and 
 judges, but was dissuaded by Penruddock. The 
 sheriff, even though thus threatened, refused to 
 
 1 Cromwelliana, 151. 2 Whitelock, 600. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 601. 4 Thurloe, vi. 829. 
 
 5 History, in. 494. Whitelock, 601.
 
 94 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 proclaim Charles 1 , the crier at Blandford was simi- 
 larly obdurate 2 , and the royalists could make nothing 
 South of their plan. They were defeated by Major Unton 
 Motion. c roo k at South Molton on March 14 s . Penruddock 
 and Grove, two of the leaders, were captured, Wagstaff, 
 with the Earl of Rochester, who had also been in 
 England on business, escaped to the Continent 4 . 
 Penruddock, on his trial, practically confessed his 
 guilt 5 , and was executed. 
 
 So prompt was Cromwell's action on this occasion, 
 that both his contemporary and modern critics have 
 denied the existence of the plot altogether 6 . That 
 Cromwell was not over anxious to hide its existence 
 is probable from the curious story of Wogan's adven- 
 tures, related by Clarendon 7 . But the main facts 
 before alluded to, together with Charles' journey 
 from Cologne to Middleburgh 8 , and the execution 
 of Manning 9 , seem to place the plot itself beyond 
 dispute. 
 
 Origin of The scheme of the Majors-General, which followed, 
 th f t f clieme seems to have grown up at first in an unconscious 
 Majors- way, till Cromwell's eye for organisation saw the 
 General. poss ibilities of it. On March 17, 1655 10 , three days 
 after Penruddock's defeat, Desborough, then com- 
 
 1 Clarendon, in. 434. 2 Cromwelliana, 152. 
 
 3 Wbitelock, 601. 4 Clarendon, in. 435437. 
 
 5 State Trials (Hargraves, 4th ed.), n. 259262. 
 
 6 Cf. Cromwell's Speech to his 2nd Parliament (Carlyle, iv. 191 
 and 195). Ludlow, n. 533. Quarterly Review, Ap. 1886, 414 
 442. Anon. (Mr B. Palgrave); answer, in English Historical 
 Review, Ap. 1888. (Mr C. H. Frith) 323350 ; reply, July 16, 1888, 
 521539. 
 
 7 History, in. 397. 8 History, in. 432. 
 9 History, HI. 438443. 10 Thurloe, in. 263.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 95 
 
 manding in the west, in pursuance of instructions 
 before received, wrote to Thurloe a letter describing 
 the arrangement of his troops " convenient for the 
 apprehension of those that are fled 1 ." On May 
 28 he is appointed Major-General of all the troops, 
 regulars and militia, in the counties of Cornwall, 
 Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wilts, and Gloucester, with 
 general instructions to keep the peace 2 . On August 
 9 following appears a scheme 3 , apparently founded 
 on this precedent, for dividing the whole country into 
 districts, each under a Major- General, in command of 
 the newly raised militia 4 . Of the number of the 
 districts various reports are given. Roger Coke says 
 fourteen 5 , Carlyle 6 , Guizot 7 , and the new Parliamen- 
 tary History 9 put it at twelve, Mr Green at ten 9 . 
 The facts seem to have been these. 
 
 In the order in Thurloe, dated August 9, 1655, 
 the following are named as the districts and their 
 commanders : 
 
 1. Kent and Surrey Kelsey. 
 
 2. Hants, Sussex, and Berks . . Goffe. 
 
 3. Northampton, Rutland. Hun-) _ 
 
 j j -D jf j r Butler, 
 
 tmgdon, and Bedford . . . j 
 
 4. Lincoln, Nottingham, Stam-1 , 
 
 , j T . j VIT -if" Whalley. 
 
 ford, Leicester, and Warwick J 
 
 1 Thurloe, in. 220221. 
 
 - Thurloe, in. 486. 3 Thurloe, in. 701. 
 
 4 The Commission for the London militia had issued Feb. 13, 
 Skippon being named commander. Cromicelliana, 151. 
 
 8 Detection, 392. 
 
 6 Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, rv. 135 n. 
 
 7 Life of Cromwell (trans.), 298. 8 in. 1478. 
 
 9 History of the English People, in. 209.
 
 96 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 5. North and South Wales, Here- ) ^ 
 
 ford, and Salop I 
 
 6. Yorkshire, Lancashire, Dur-1 
 
 ham, Westmoreland, Cumber- > Lambert, 
 land, and Northumberland . J 
 7 Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, ] , , 
 
 Dorset, Wilts, and Gloucester j 
 
 8. Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hert- } Lord Deputy 
 
 ford, Cambridge, Isle of Ely, V of Ireland 
 Oxford, Bucks . . . . . j (Fleetwood). 
 
 9. Derby, Chester, and Worcester Wolsely. 
 10. Middlesex and London . 
 
 This was the first plan, and Thurloe, writing of 
 it to -Henry Cromwell in Ireland on October 16, 
 speaks of it as " the greatest creation of honours, 
 his Highness hath made since his accesse to the 
 government 1 ." So that there is at least some slight 
 foundation for those who urge that one of Cromwell's 
 objects in the plan was to satisfy the desire of his 
 officers for distinction. 
 
 In this letter Thurloe especially says that " the 
 tenth is not yet named," but a letter from Nieuport, 
 the ambassador of the States-General, to his govern- 
 ment on November 3, reports that the tenth district 
 is split into two, London being given to Skippon, and 
 Westminster and Middlesex to Sir John Barkstead, 
 the governor of the Tower 2 . This would make eleven 
 districts, but it seems that Skippon was not actu- 
 ally appointed till March 1656 s . On April 11, 1656, 
 
 1 Thurloe, iv. 88. - Thurloe, iv. 117. 
 
 3 See letter same to same. Thurloe, iv. 588, and Cromwelliana, 
 155.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 97 
 
 the formal estimate of the Council finally fixed the 
 scheme, as far as locality is concerned. This estimate, 
 and the revised plan of June 12 following, are not 
 in print, but are easily accessible at the Record 
 Office \ From them it appears, that Derbyshire 
 and Worcestershire were taken away from Wolsely's 
 district, and replaced by Lancashire and Stafford- 
 shire. Wolsely himself died in June 1656, and his 
 name is replaced by a blank in the second estimate, 
 but it appears that Tobias Bridge was ultimately 
 appointed to succeed him 2 . Derbyshire was given 
 to Whalley 3 , and Worcester to Berry. Lambert and 
 Fleetwood were each allowed a deputy, but without 
 additional pay. This would increase the list, includ- 
 ing sub-districts, to thirteen. But of Dawkin's 
 district, Monmouth and South Wales, mentioned 
 by Carlyle 4 , I cannot find any mention in the 
 authoritative documents. 
 
 The instructions given to the Majors-General Duties 
 were very wide. They were to suppress tumults /fajars- 
 and rebellion, to " enquire into idlers, 1 " to promote General. 
 godliness and discourage profanity, to keep a strict 
 eye on the carriage of the disaffected, and especially to 
 allow no horse races, cock fightings, bear baitings or 
 unlawful assemblies, " as rebellion is usually hatched 
 in such cases." They were especially to assist those 
 appointed to levy a tax for maintenance of the new 
 
 1 Domestic Papers. Interregnum. Vols. cxxvi. and cxxvm. 
 
 2 Calendar, x. 28. 
 
 3 Cf. also Whalley's letter to Thurloe, iv. 273. 
 
 4 iv. 135 n. 
 
 J. 7
 
 98 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 militia forces on the estates of delinquents 1 . An 
 additional instruction of Dec. 25, 1655 2 , directed 
 them to search for any persons who had public 
 monies in their hands, and compel them to pay 
 over the amount to persons nominated by the Major- 
 General and commissioners. These commissioners 
 appear to have been civilians sent to act as council- 
 lors to the Majors-General in their task. 
 
 The"deci- One of the most important duties entrusted to 
 motzojt" t j ie Majors-General was the enforcement of a tax, 
 known as the " decimation," upon the whole royalist 
 party. Cromwell had determined that the new mea- 
 sure should pay its own expenses, and he accordingly 
 issued, on Sept. 21, 1655, a most stringent ordinance 
 of confiscation. All persons who had been actually 
 engaged against the Commonwealth since Dec. 16, 
 1653, were to lose their estates, an allowance of 
 one-third being made for their wives and children. 
 All who continued to " adhere " to the late king or 
 his son were to be banished or imprisoned, whilst all 
 who had been in former times sequestered for delin- 
 quency, or had at any time fought against the Par- 
 liament, were to be compelled to pay an annual tax 
 of ten per cent, upon their income from lands, and 
 an annual sum of 10, or a capital sum of 100, for 
 every 1500 of personalty. Those whose income 
 from land did not amount to 100 were excused 
 by a single payment of 10 on every 1500 of 
 personalty. None of the royalists were to keep 
 
 1 Calendar, vin. 296, Aug. 22, 1655. The tax was raised by 
 order of the Council dated Sept. 21, following. 
 
 2 Thurloe, iv. 344.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 99 
 
 chaplains, schoolmasters, ejected ministers, or fellows 
 of colleges in their houses, nor have their children 
 brought up by such under a penalty of double taxa- 
 tion, and none were to have arms without license 
 under penalty of imprisonment 1 . 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the scheme of the Cromwell's 
 Majors-General was the cause of grave discontent. "' 
 What were Cromwell's real views and intentions 
 with regard to it, no one seems to know. One 
 small point is worth remarking. In the official 
 documents the officers who executed it are always 
 spoken of as "Majors-General" not "Major-Generals." 
 And this, in an age rarely guilty of uniformity in spell- 
 ing, is probably something more than an accident. 
 Their previous military title is always continued, 
 in addition to their new designation. The numbers 
 of the forces allotted to each commander, rarely 
 exceeding half a dozen troops of 80 men each, is 
 nothing like the proper contingent for a Major- 
 General of army rank. And a purely military officer 
 does not have clerks, doorkeepers, and messengers as 
 the Majors-General had 2 . Moreover the considerable 
 powers given to the civil commissioners are incon- 
 sistent with a military despotism. It seems possible 
 that Cromwell intended the scheme to ripen in course 
 of time into a system of local government, with the 
 Majors-General in the places of the Lords-Lieutenant, 
 and the Commissioners instead of Justices of the 
 Peace, officials never very much approved of by 
 
 1 Calendar, vin. 346, 347. 
 
 - Cf. scheme in Estimates of April 11, and June 12, 1656. 
 
 72
 
 100 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 him 1 . The taxation was really not in itself excessive. 
 The land tax of 1694 was at double the rate of" 
 Cromwell's decimation, and Pitt's income tax of a 
 hundred years later was as great as the Protectorate 
 levy. The total expense of the Majors- General, with 
 their militia and civil officers, was at first estimated 
 at 80,000 a year; the later scheme, by careful 
 economy, reduced this to 6 7,000 2 . 
 
 Criticism But the plan had two great weaknesses. In the 
 scheme. fi rst place the Majors-General were not men of local 
 position. They were vigorous, upright men, most of 
 them sprung from the ranks, thoroughly loyal to 
 Cromwell, and capable of any amount of w T ork. But 
 there was nothing to break the isolation of their 
 position. Had they been settled on forfeited estates, 
 they would in course of time have formed local inter- 
 ests, their existence would not have been so con- 
 spicuous, they would probably also have better 
 understood the people they had to govern. As 
 Harrington says, "arms planted upon dominion 
 extirpate enemies and make friends, but main- 
 tained by a mere tax, have enemies that have 
 roots, and friends that have none 3 ." As it was, 
 they were probably rather too energetic. Major- 
 General Butler writes to Thurloe that he has 
 
 1 I even venture to suggest, in a note, that what Cromwell 
 intended was not Majors-General but Mayors-General. The origin 
 of the two names is identical, and the distinction was not well 
 marked in the seventeenth century. Sprigge (Anglia Rediviva, 
 p. 33) speaks of the Major and magistrates of Northampton 
 
 2 Domestic Papers. Interregnum. Vols. cxxvi. and cxxvm. 
 Schemes of April and June. 
 
 3 Oceana, 64.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 101 
 
 imprisoned one Dickens, who "hath a wife in 
 London, hath wandered up and down these 12 
 months, pretending himself to be a farrier, hath 
 gone a wooing two maids in this country, and 
 got moneys of them to the value of 10 upon 
 promise of marriage, and hath been formerly in 
 the king's army 1 ." Another time the delinquent 
 is one John Goodman, "a pitiful drunken wretch, 
 and every way as prophane as the devil can make 
 him, (I think) hath no estate, lives upon the snatch 
 altogether, and being a prophane jester to some gen- 
 tlemen of the countrey 2 ." 
 
 The scheme was also unwise because by its very 
 existence it kept up the distinction between Cavalier 
 and Roundhead. The payment of the tax was a 
 burning brand set upon those who might be inclined 
 to settle down under the new government. It 
 marked them off from any hope they might have 
 cherished of being reckoned as peaceable subjects. 
 
 And it is more than doubtful if the plan paid 
 its own expenses, moderate as they were. I have 
 not been able to find any complete returns of the 
 tax, but a comparison of the reduced estimate of 
 June 12, 1656, with the accounts sent up by some 
 of the Majors-General, and preserved by Thurloe, 
 shew that in nearly every case there was a loss. 
 Major-General Butler's four counties, Northampton, 
 Huntingdon, Rutland, and Bedford, were to cost 
 4255. 55. a year. They only produced 2984. 11s. 8d. 3 
 Suffolk brought in 1069. 12s. 4 against an expense of 
 
 1 Thurloe, iv. 632. 2 Thurloe, iv. 633. 
 
 3 Thurloe, iv. 511513. 4 Thurloe, iv. 428.
 
 102 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 2606. 9s.; Hampshire 1235' against 1779. 6s.; 
 Cumberland and Westmoreland 780. 11s. a against 
 949. ] 3s. Essex alone yielded a profit 3 . Apparently 
 Cromwell himself found the plan did not work, for 
 he left it to its fate in the succeeding Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 Cromwell's In other respects the government of the Protector 
 
 plans during the absence of Parliament was brilliantly 
 
 successful. In November 1655 the long anticipated 
 
 Treaty treaty with France was signed 4 , and Cromwell was 
 
 France, preparing for vigorous measures against the Spaniard, 
 
 War with upon whom he levied war as the bulwark of Papal 
 
 intolerance in Europe, and the obstacle to English 
 
 commerce in the East. The brilliant exploits of 
 
 Blake at Tunis 5 and off the coast of Spain increased 
 
 the naval prestige of England, and the failure at 
 
 Hispaniola 6 , the one serious reverse of the Protector's 
 
 arms, was more than compensated for by the capture 
 
 of Jamaica and Blake's subsequent victory at Tene- 
 
 riffe 7 . In spite of a little splutter with Whitelock 
 
 and Widdrington, the Chancery ordinance was got 
 
 to work 8 , the Treasury system was reformed 9 , and a 
 
 new University at Durham planned 10 . The accounts 
 
 from Scotland and Ireland were encouraging. The 
 
 Scotland. Scotch Council now consisted of Monk, Broghill, 
 
 1 Thurloe, iv. 240. 2 Thurloe, iv. 562. 
 
 3 Thurloe, iv. 436. 2689. 2s. against 1809. 6s. 
 
 4 Cromwelliana, 153. Whitelock, 618. 
 
 5 Clarendon, in. 454. 6 Whitelock, 608. 
 
 7 Clarendon, in. 470. 
 
 8 Whitelock, 602, 606, 607, 608. 
 
 9 Whitelock, 608, 623. 
 
 10 Whitelock, 624. Cromwelliana, 156.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 103 
 
 Howard, Lockhart, Swinton, Scroope, Samuel Des- 
 borough, Whetham and Cooper 1 . Under the admir- 
 able guidance of BroghilP, they had settled a civil 
 list which left two-thirds of the excise for the 
 payment of the army arrears, and yet kept within 
 the bounds of the ordinary revenue 3 . The army had 
 been put upon a peace footing, and the assessment 
 fixed at 10,000 a month 4 . The receipts from cus- 
 toms and excise were steadily rising 5 . In October 
 1655 the government could venture to allow the 
 Scotch to elect their own magistrates 6 . From Ireland, Ireland. 
 Fleetwood wrote in August 1655 that he had dis- 
 banded twenty-six companies of foot, and was about 
 to disband sixteen troops of horse 7 . For the finan- 
 cial year 1656 1657 the Irish revenue, exclusive of 
 assessments, amounted to nearly 70,000, with a 
 prospect of immediate increase 8 , and this allowed 
 a payment of 17,000 for the maintenance of 
 ministers and schoolmasters 9 . By this time the Cere- 
 Protector had assumed most of the ceremonies of 7 " 
 royalty. He gave audiences to foreign ambassadors 10 , 
 he bestowed the honour of knighthood 11 , his wife 
 was spoken of as "Her Highness 12 ," and his sons 
 as "Lord Richard" and "Lord Henry 13 ." Only on 
 one point had he any serious difficulty, the raising of 
 
 1 Thurloe, in. 423. 2 Thurloe, iv. 48, 106. 
 
 3 Thurloe, iv. 526530. 4 Thurloe, n. 476. 
 
 5 38,970 in spring of 1656 (Thurloe, iv. 530). 51,000 odd 
 in August 1657 (Thurloe, vi. 445, 472). 
 
 6 Whitelock, 617. 7 Thurloe, m. 711. 
 8 Thurloe, vi. 340. 9 Thurloe, vi. 596. 
 
 10 Cromwelliana, p. 153. u Cromwelliana, 155. 
 
 12 Cromivelliana, 153. 13 Cromwelliana, 156.
 
 104 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Financial 
 difficulties, 
 
 The 
 Second 
 Protec- 
 torate Par 
 liament. 
 
 The 
 
 " Healing- 
 Question.' 
 
 money. Notwithstanding his frugal and excellent 
 management of the revenue, he was not yet able to 
 do without the monthly assessments, which he con- 
 tinued by ordinance after the dissolution of the 
 Parliament. A merchant named Cony, formerly 
 one of his supporters, refused to pay money de- 
 manded upon this authority. He was brought 
 before Cromwell, and when he objected to the 
 legality of the tax, the Protector had only the 
 plea of necessity to urge. He took high ground, 
 and even went to the length of imprisoning the 
 counsel who moved for Cony's Habeas Corpus 1 . Of 
 course such a glaring repetition of Charles' high- 
 handedness could not fail to provoke comment. The 
 great questions are, whether Cromwell was actuated 
 by honorable or dishonorable motives, and whether 
 such courses were really necessary. 
 
 At any rate, Cromwell made up his mind to call 
 another Parliament, and it was appointed to meet 
 on Sept. 17, 1656. But before turning to the 
 history of this Parliament, it may be worth while to 
 see what were the views of Cromwell's constitutional 
 opponents at this time. 
 
 Sir Henry Vane was perhaps the most likely man 
 to be admitted as spokesman of a party in which all 
 leadership was ostracized, and his Healing Question 
 Propounded and Resolved was a deliberate plan for 
 the settlement of a government at this period. It 
 was published in March 1656, and had a great sale. 
 It is in every way good evidence of the views of 
 the Republican party. The pamphlet is in many 
 1 Cromwelliana, 153.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 105 
 
 respects attractive, and is creditable to Vane's 
 feelings, but one can hardly help wondering at the 
 simplicity of the man who thought such a scheme 
 possible at the time. 
 
 The argument, which is not very easy to follow, 
 appears to run thus. The sovereignty is in the "well 
 affected " among the people by nature and by con- 
 quest. The actual irresistible power is with the 
 army, which must however be taken to represent the 
 people. The army should invest the people's repre- 
 sentative (" the supreame judicature ") with the 
 supreme power, and then take up the position of 
 an obedient servant, but yet, apparently, watch to 
 see that the representative does not infringe its 
 " fundamentals," for to these it is to be limited. 
 
 The practical realization of this scheme is to be 
 thus achieved. The Protector, as general of the 
 army, is to summon a convention, " which convention 
 is not properly to exercise the legislative power, but 
 only to debate freely, and agree upon the particulars, 
 that, by way of fundamentall constitutions, shall be 
 laid and inviolably observed as the conditions upon 
 which the whole body so represented doth consent to 
 cast itself into a civil and politick incorporation, and 
 under the visible form and administration of govern- 
 ment therein declared, and to be by each iiidividuall 
 member of the body subscribed in testimony of his 
 or their particular consent given thereunto. Which 
 conditions so agreed (and amongst them an Act of 
 Oblivion for one) will be without danger of being 
 broken or departed from; considering of what it is 
 they are the conditions and the nature of the con-
 
 106 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 vention wherein they are made, which is of the 
 people represented in their highest state of sove- 
 reignty, as they have the sword in their hands 
 unsubjected to the rules of civill government, but 
 what themselves orderly assembled for that purpose 
 do think fit to make. And the sword upon these 
 conditions subjecting itself to the supreme judi- 
 cature thus to be set up 1 ." 
 
 Criticism This plan, interesting as an early attempt to 
 "Healing- realize the theory of the Social Contract, was 
 Question." evidently quite impossible as a practical suggestion. 
 Sovereignty, or supreme power, especially in dis- 
 turbed times, is a question of fact, not of law. The 
 Healing Question proposed to separate the de jure 
 from the de facto sovereignty, and make the latter 
 subject to the former, which, however, it also proposed 
 to limit by "fundamentals." But the absurdity of 
 the scheme is apparent. Suppose that the consti- 
 tution-making convention, when summoned, refused 
 to consider an Act of Oblivion. Was it bound to do 
 so because Sir Henry Vane had so laid it down ? It 
 is somewhat extraordinary that Vane, coming so near 
 to the truth in placing his de facto sovereignty with 
 the army, did not see that this sovereign power had 
 already expressed its will in the existing consti- 
 tution. 
 
 The new No precautions were neglected to prevent the 
 
 elections. ca t a strophe of a second recalcitrant Parliament. 
 
 Ludlow 2 and Coke 3 both accuse the government 
 
 of tampering with the elections, and evidently with 
 
 1 Somers Tracts, vi. 312. 2 Memoirs, n. 568. 
 
 3 Detection, 398.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 107 
 
 justice. The machinery was by this time well 
 settled, and rendered effectual help. Major-General 
 Desborough has " consulted with the honest people 
 of every county, as I came along, and with them 
 agreed upon names, and have sett them at worke 
 for the improvement of their interest to elect sober 
 and good men 1 ." Broghill writes from Scotland, " I 
 hope you will not have one unfit person out of this 
 nation 2 ." Whalley gives the electors of Nottingham 
 a hint not to choose Hutchinson 3 . This may be only 
 allowable electioneering tactics, but when it conies 
 to lists of suitable candidates being given out by 
 government officials 4 , and candidates being nomi- 
 nated in Scotland by members of the Council 5 , the 
 bounds of impartiality are evidently exceeded. It 
 becomes a question then of the justification by 
 necessity. 
 
 In spite of all precautions the elections were not 
 satisfactory. Desponding letters from Major-General 
 Haynes 6 , Fleetwood's deputy in Norwich, and from 
 Major-General Kelsey in Maidstone 7 , warned the 
 Protector what to expect. The "saints," disgusted 
 with the failure of the Little Parliament, had made 
 up their minds not to vote, but were aroused to a 
 sense of their duty by a pamphlet entitled England's 
 Remembrancer 8 , and doubtless threw their weight 
 into the scale against the government candidates. 
 Scot, Haselrig, and other prominent Republicans 
 
 1 Thurloe, v. 303. 2 Thurloe, v. 295. 
 
 3 Thurloe, v. 299. 4 Thurloe, v. 329. 
 
 5 Thurloe, v. 367. 6 Thurloe, v. 329. 
 
 7 Calendar, x. 87. 8 Thurloe, v. 268.
 
 108 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 were returned 1 , and though Scotland sent fourteen 
 and Ireland twelve military men or government 
 officials, the Protector was afraid to trust the Parlia- 
 ment without further precaution. He took an arbi- 
 trary step, openly avowed, and after some hesitation 
 Exclusion acquiesced in. About one hundred Republicans and 
 suspected Royalists, Scot, Haselrig, A. A. Cooper, Harbottle 
 Members. Grimston, and Maynard amongst them, were refused 
 admittance by order of the Council, and, after a 
 protest 2 , submitted to the exclusion. The remainder 
 of the House made some enquiry of the clerk of the 
 Chancery, and were informed that the Council had 
 not refused to approve of any who had appeared to 
 them to be Persons of Integrity to the Government, 
 fearing God, and of good Conversation ; but that 
 the Protector had given orders that those not 
 approved should not be admitted to the House 3 . 
 The open- Cromwell's opening speech comprised a masterly 
 ing speec . j us ti nca tion of his policy at home and abroad, a 
 full account of his government since the dissolution, 
 a recommendation to provide a maintenance of 
 ministers instead of tithes, and to proceed with the 
 reform of the law and the revenue, and a request 
 for vigorous assistance in the Spanish war 4 . Fol- 
 lowing closely upon the speech came the news of 
 Santa Blake's victory at Santa Cruz, and the Parliament, 
 purged of its unruly elements, set to work upon the 
 tasks assigned. It proceeded to settle an elaborate 
 Book of Rates to serve as the basis of a new Excise 
 
 1 Somers Tracts, vi. 339 for list. 
 
 - Whitelock, 640. 3 Journals, Sept. 22, 1656. 
 
 4 Carlyle, iv. 178222.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 109 
 
 Act 1 , it discussed a maintenance for ministers 2 , it 
 made some attempt to set up local courts of justice 3 , 
 and it voted 400,000 for the Spanish war 4 . It also 
 passed a bill to abolish for ever the title of the Stuarts, 
 and another for the security of Cromwell's person 5 . 
 
 But these achievements were marred by the 
 pedantic and harsh prosecution of an unfortunate 
 enthusiast who had raised a small disturbance in the 
 neighbourhood of Bristol 6 , and by a corrupt use of 
 the power of legislation to further private ends. 
 "I daresay more private Bills are brought in this 
 Parliament than in all the Long Parliament," says 
 the reporter on December 30 7 , when the Parlia- 
 ment had only sat two months and a half. And 
 there were not wanting signs that the old spirit of 
 the Rump was alive. On April 30, 1657, the 
 House "confirmed" for a period of three years 
 several ordinances issued between January and 
 September 1654, but it resolved with respect to 
 the acts and ordinances made between April 1, 
 1642, and April 20, 1653, that "this House doth 
 conceive no Need of any Declaration or Confirmation, 
 the same being valid in themselves and ought to be 
 accepted and taken 8 ." It also interfered with the 
 Act for the sale of the forests, and with the Chancery 
 ordinance 9 . 
 
 1 Scobell, 1656, 19. 2 Burton, n. 331336. 
 
 3 Journals, Nov. 5, 20, 1656. 
 
 4 Journals, Feb. 7, 1657. Whitelock, 645. 
 
 5 Whitelock, 643. 
 
 6 Burton, i. 33 &c. Whitelock, 644. 
 
 7' Burton, i. 269. 8 Journals, April 30, 1657. 
 
 9 Journals, April 30, 1657.
 
 110 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 The new The principal work of the session was, however, 
 
 tion. the settlement of a new constitution. The first hint 
 of the matter appears to have been on January 19, 
 1657, when upon the occasion of a resolution being 
 agreed upon to send a congratulation to the Pro- 
 tector on his escape from Sindercomb's plot, Mr 
 Ashe the elder moved to add a request " that his 
 Highness would be pleased to take upon himself the 
 government according to the ancient constitution 1 ." 
 This suggestion provoked much resentment at the 
 time, and was dropped, but on February 23 Sir 
 Christopher Pack, an Alderman of London, presented 
 The a paper entitled The Humble Address and Remon- 
 
 Address." strance of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, now 
 assembled in the Parliament of this Commonwealth 2 . 
 This document contained the draft of a new consti- 
 tution, in which Cromwell was offered the title of 
 king, together with the government practically on 
 the terms of the old constitution. General rumour 
 attributes the authorship of this document to Crom- 
 well himself 3 . It is certain that Pack was a strong 
 Cromwellite, and it is alleged that he was coerced by 
 the threat of revenue proceedings against him for 
 defalcation as a collector of customs, if he refused to 
 perform the service. The latter account is unlikely, 
 but it is quite possible that Cromwell, wearied with 
 the pedantries of the House, may have wished for a 
 more constitutional position. His preference for a 
 royalist form of government had been expressed in the 
 
 1 Burton, i. 362. 
 
 2 Journals, Feb. 23, 1657. Burton, i. 394. 
 
 3 Ludlow, n. 583. Burton, in. 160.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. Ill 
 
 well-known interview held with the army chiefs and 
 the leading statesmen in 1651 1 , and his subsequent 
 conduct had shewed that he adhered to that view. 
 
 The House took the proposal very readily, and 
 debated the petition clause by clause during the 
 month of March, till on the 31st it was ready for 
 presentation. 
 
 Hereupon ensued the famous series of passages The 
 between Parliament and Protector relative to the 
 acceptance of the title 2 . The House appointed a 
 committee of 99, headed by Whitelock, to carry on 
 the negotiations 3 . They urged the familiar argu- 
 ments in favour of the royal form of government. 
 It was well known and fitted in with the form of 
 laws and institutions. It was the only title which 
 really implied a settlement, all others being regarded 
 as temporary and leaving room for the Stuarts to 
 pose as de jure monarchs. It was fixed, and its 
 powers limited, by constitutional precedent. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Cromwell privately What were 
 desired the title, and as little that he desired it from 
 no paltry motives. He had for four years wielded 
 more real power than any ruler had done since 
 Henry VIII. He was not the man to care for 
 empty show. But he seemed profoundly convinced 
 of the necessity of having Parliaments, and as con- 
 
 1 Whitelock, 491. 
 
 2 See account of the proceedings in a pamphlet entitled 
 Monarchy asserted to be the best, most ancient, and legal Form of 
 Government, published in 1660. Somers Tracts, vi. 346, and in 
 Ludlow, ii. 585. 
 
 3 This committee is said to have been a majority of the House. 
 Burton, 11. 9.
 
 112 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Bemon- 
 strance of 
 the army. 
 
 Analysis 
 of the 
 " Humble 
 Petition." 
 
 vinced that Parliaments would respect no one short 
 of a king. In his great designs and his exercise of 
 vigilance, the position would really have hampered 
 him, but in the ordinary routine of business it would 
 have simplified matters. He probably felt that his 
 health was uncertain, and desired to make a sort of 
 constitutional resignation of his great power. 
 
 But it was not to be. On April 1 Thurloe had 
 written to Lockhart that the army had promised to 
 acquiesce in whatever the Protector and Parliament 
 agreed upon, with regard to the Petition 1 . On the 
 9th he had to write of the insurrection of the Fifth- 
 Monarchy men at Mile-End Green, and the im- 
 prisonment of Harrison and Lawson 14 . On the llth 
 followed the production of the " Standard with the 
 Red Lion Couchant " in the House 3 . On the 20th 
 a formal remonstrance was presented to the Protector 
 by the chiefs of the army 4 , and on May 8 Crom- 
 well declined the title 6 . 
 
 This great difficulty being settled, the consti- 
 tution was soon completed. On May 28 the Address, 
 its title now changed to that of The Humble Petition 
 and Advice, was accepted by the Protector, and 
 on June 26 certain additional articles received 
 his sanction. 
 
 The new constitution was in more than one 
 important point different from its predecessor. The 
 Protector was allowed to name his own successor 6 . 
 
 1 Calendar, x. 324. 2 Calendar, x. 335. 
 
 3 Journals, April 11, 1657. 4 Whitelock, 646. 
 
 6 Monarchy asserted. Somers Tracts, vi. 400. 
 6 Art i.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 113 
 
 There was to be a second or "other" House, con- 
 sisting of not more than 70 nor less than 40 persons 
 nominated by the Protector for life, subject to the 
 same disqualifications as the members of the Repre- 
 sentative House 1 . A settled revenue of 1,300,000 
 was granted to the Protector, 300,000 for the 
 expenses of government and a million for the forces. 
 Monies for payment of the troops were to be issued 
 with the advice of the Council, and an account to be 
 rendered to every Parliament' 2 . There is to be a 
 Council of State, not exceeding twenty-one in number, 
 with seven for a quorum ; all new names and re- 
 movals being subject to the approval of both Houses 3 
 A Confession of Faith is to be agreed upon between 
 the Protector and Parliament, and all who dissent 
 from it are to be incapable of official employment, 
 but there is to be no disqualification for those who 
 merely differ in matters of worship and discipline, 
 and all believers in the Trinity and the Scriptures, 
 except papists, prelatists, and blasphemers, are to be 
 protected in the exercise of their religion 4 . The 
 great officers and judges are to be appointed by the 
 Protector with the approval of Parliament 3 . 
 
 On the other hand, the Protector is to observe 
 the existing law in all cases not provided for by 
 the constitution 8 . The privileges of Parliament, es- 
 pecially the freedom of election, are guaranteed 7 . 
 This guarantee was further secured in the original 
 form by the provision that election questions shall 
 be tried by a body of forty-one commissioners 
 
 1 Art. v. 2 Art. vu. 3 Art. vm. 4 Art. xi. 
 
 8 Art. ix. 6 Art. i. 7 Art. in. 
 
 J. 8
 
 114 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 appointed by Act of Parliament 1 , a provision for 
 which was substituted, in the amending instrument, 
 a simple enactment that any unqualified person 
 presuming to sit should be subject to a fine of one 
 thousand pounds, the question being thus left to the 
 ordinary courts' 2 . Parliaments are to be summoned 
 at least every three years 3 . The electoral disquali- 
 fications are somewhat stricter than those in the 
 Instrument, excluding for ever all those who have 
 fought against the Parliament since 1641 (in Scot- 
 land before 1648), unless they have since actively 
 assisted it, and absolutely all those who have been 
 engaged in any plot against the Government since 
 Dec. 16, 1653*. The somewhat vague disquali- 
 fications of "denier" of Scriptures and ordinances, 
 "prophaner of the Lord's Day," and general ill- 
 conduct exclude from election but not from the 
 vote 5 . The details of the distribution and the 
 franchise apparently remain untouched. The ad- 
 ditional articles provide forms of oath for the 
 Protector, councillors, and members of Parliament 6 . 
 Between the acceptance of the constitution and 
 the actual investiture the House finished off some 
 small amount of business, naturally in a somewhat 
 uncertain state of mind with regard to its consti- 
 tutional position 7 . An assessment of 50,000 a month 
 
 1 Art. iv. 
 
 - Additional Humble Petition. Somers Tracts, vi. 410. 
 
 3 Humble Petition, Art. n. 4 Humble Petition, Art. iv. 
 
 8 Humble Petition, Art. iv. 
 
 6 Both documents are in Whitelock, 678. 
 
 * Burton, n. 280.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 115 
 
 was granted for three years, and bills regulating 
 the customs and excise, abolishing purveyance, and 
 " for catechizing " were presented to the Protector, 
 who, however, declined the latter in the old form, 
 "I am desirous to advise of this bill 1 " (Le roi s'avi- 
 sera.) 
 
 Then upon the ceremony of investiture the 
 Parliament was prorogued, to meet in its new 
 form on January 20, 1658 2 . It would have been 
 more natural, perhaps, to have had a dissolution, but 
 it was, possibly, intended to make some alterations in 
 the distribution, and it may have been thought 
 better to let the existing Parliament effect these 
 changes in pursuance of the IVth article of the 
 constitution. 
 
 The Humble Petition and Advice represents very Estimate 
 nearly the immediate constitutional results of the ^mble 
 revolution. The religious liberty is in some respects Petition. 
 greater under it than the Restoration permitted, 
 although the exclusion of Episcopalians from tole- 
 ration goes a long way to rank the protectorate 
 Parliament with that which passed the Uniformity 
 and Conventicle Acts. The leave given to Cromwell 
 to nominate his successor is, of course, unparalleled 
 in later history. But the granting of a fixed 
 revenue, the right of Parliament to examine the 
 accounts, the provision for triennial Parliaments, the 
 approval of Parliament required by the Ministers 
 (direct instead of indirect, as was afterwards the case), 
 all remind us very strongly of the actual Restoration 
 settlement. There can be no doubt that under it 
 
 1 Burton, n. 205. 2 Cromwelliana, 165 167. 
 
 82
 
 116 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Cromwell had less power than under the Instrument. 
 It is true that no minimum limit for the session of 
 Parliament is fixed, but on the other hand the great 
 power given by the former constitution in the matter 
 of ordinances is not renewed, and it is expressly pro- 
 vided that the revenue cannot be increased without 
 the consent of Parliament. If the Humble Petition 
 really be Cromwell's work, it shews that he was 
 anxious to moderate his position, to put it in some 
 definite shape in which it could be handed over to- 
 his successor. 
 
 Meeting The Parliament met, as appointed, on January 
 
 ^ e 20, 1658. The new House consisted of sixty-three- 
 Parlia- names, nearly all of them of men well known as 
 prominent figures in the history of the period. The 
 grounds for selection are evidently various. Some, 
 the majority, are distinguished Puritans, men of 
 zeal and ability, the army chiefs or the new officials. 
 Others are summoned, perhaps, to prevent their 
 presence in the Commons House. But this object, 
 if object it were, did not always succeed ; Sir Arthur 
 Haselrig, for instance, preferred to take his seat 
 amongst his old companions 1 . A few of the old 
 nobility, who had been faithful to the Commonwealth, 
 were summoned, but they declined to sit. Cromwell 
 himself had made two peers by patent; Charles 
 Howard was created Lord Howard of Morpeth, and 
 Edmund Dunch, Lord Burnell 2 . In the Commons 
 House the secluded members were admitted, whilst 
 
 1 Burton, n. 347. 
 
 2 Noble, Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, i. 439 ; 
 n. 162.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 117 
 
 the summoning of Cromwell's strongest supporters 
 to the Lords greatly weakened his party in the 
 Commons. 
 
 The result, as is well known, was disastrous, its 
 On the 22nd January, the Commons started the co ***" 
 promising question of the " other House 1 ,'' and, being 
 joined by Sir Arthur Haselrig on the 25th 2 , who on 
 learning the game cheerfully suggested that such an 
 important matter might " very well be a two months' 
 debate 3 ," they kept up the sport with vigour. Sir 
 Arthur also testified to the reasonableness of his 
 intentions by quarrelling with one of the preachers 
 for not alluding to the Long Parliament, and moved 
 to call it a " victorious parliament ;" a motion which 
 was seconded by Mr Scot 4 . 
 
 Once they were warned by the Protector, on the 
 25th January 5 , in a speech 6 which seemed to insinu- 
 ate that the Protestant cause in Europe and the public 
 safety at home were matters of somewhat greater 
 importance than the title of the "other House." 
 But it was in vain. They squabbled about Scobell's 
 papers 7 . They accused the Protector (without war- 
 rant, as their own Journals shew 8 ) of intending to 
 communicate money matters to the Lords 9 ; and they 
 were about to go into Grand Committee on the title 
 of the " other House 10 ," when they were dissolved, on Dissolu- 
 the 4th February, 1658 11 . tion ' 
 
 1 Burton, n. 340. Journals. 2 Burton, n. 347. 
 
 3 Burton, n. 393. 4 Burton, n. 376. 
 
 6 Burton, n. 351. 6 Caiiyle, v. 102124. 
 
 7 Burton, n. 403. 8 Journals, Jan. 28, 1658. 
 9 Burton, n. 380. 10 Burton, IL 437. 
 
 " Burton, n. 465.
 
 118 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 They met no more in Oliver's lifetime, which was 
 now soon to close. In May the ringleaders of a new 
 Royalist plot were captured and executed 1 . In June 
 came another victory over the Spaniards and the 
 
 Death of capture of Dunkirk 2 . On the 3rd of September the 
 the Pro- -r, j i s 
 
 lector. rrotector died . 
 
 It cannot be questioned that his administration 
 had been splendid abroad, and successful, at least in 
 maintaining order, at home. He had raised England 
 from the position of a third-rate power to the 
 foremost place in Europe, at a cost of only one war, 
 which had been brilliantly successful. And the 
 prompt way in which the plots were extinguished in 
 England, the tranquillity of Scotland and Ireland, 
 prove that as Chief Constable he was almost without 
 fault. 
 
 Estimate But what of the prosperity of the three coun- 
 
 Cromwell's tries ? Was his the rule of a military tyrant, peaceful, 
 
 govern- perhaps, but with the peace of stagnation and 
 
 despair ? Happily there exists the best of evidence 
 
 to shew that under his government enterprise and 
 
 industry flourished. On the return of the Hump, on 
 
 the 7th April, 1659, a full report of the revenue and 
 
 expenditure in England, Scotland, and Ireland was 
 
 presented by a Committee of the House. Its 
 
 members were no friends to Oliver. They were the 
 
 men whom he had expelled in 1653. The result of 
 
 their labours is the most signal testimony to Oliver's 
 
 success. 
 
 England. In England the annual revenue, even with an 
 
 1 Croniwelliana, 171. 2 Cromwelliana , 171. 
 
 3 Cromwelliana, 171.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 119 
 
 assessment reduced to 35,000 a month, came within 
 33,000 of the expenditure. An addition of 3000 
 a month, or a single month's assessment, would have 
 balanced the account. The Customs had risen to 
 600,000 a year, the Excise to 387,000, or an 
 increase of 14 per cent, on Sir Henry Vane's report of 
 November, 1652 1 . There was a profit of 5000 a year 
 on the newly-established probate office. The Post- 
 office brought in 14,000. 
 
 On the other hand, the expenses had been greatly 
 reduced. The assessment of 35,000 would have cost, 
 under the Parliament regulations, 10,000 a year to 
 collect. The Protector's officers did it for 7000. 
 The cost of the Excise and Customs Departments 
 together came to 60,000 a year, or less than 6 per 
 cent, of the income. The cost of the Mint was under 
 1200 a year, there was a profit of 3,500 on the 
 wine licenses. The vote of the Long Parliament 
 had been carried out, and the judges now received 
 fixed salaries, to the amount of 16,000, instead of 
 fees. But still the expenses of the army and navy 
 were frightfully heavy. The former cost 764,000 a 
 year, the latter 450,000, being, however, once more 
 within the compass of its legitimate revenue, the 
 Customs. If once the strength of the army could 
 have been reduced it is clear that Oliver's English 
 budget would have been a triumphant success. As 
 it was it was certainly a tremendous advance on the 
 chaos of the Parliamentary time. 
 
 In Scotland and Ireland the result was not so Scotland. 
 good by comparison. The expense of the forces was 
 1 Journals, Nov. 9, 1652.
 
 120 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 proportionately greater, and the incomings less. But 
 even here the improvement is manifest. In the year 
 
 1656 the Customs in Scotland had been 4,600', in 
 
 1657 they rose to 8,800 2 , and in 1658 to 14,700 3 , 
 or an increase of 300 per cent, in two years. At the 
 same dates the figures for the -Excise were 34,000 4 , 
 42,000 5 , and 49,000 6 respectively. In 1656, by a 
 rigorous settlement, Broghill had just managed to 
 make the ordinary revenue suffice for the expenses of 
 civil government 7 ; in 1657 Monk had been able to 
 allow two-thirds of the Excise towards the Army 
 arrears, and yet there had been a balance on the 
 right side of 4000 8 . In 1658 the ordinary revenue 
 more than doubled the civil expenses 9 . It was only 
 the frightful cost of the army which made the balance 
 fall the wrong way. 
 
 Ireland. In Ireland the result was the same. The Customs 
 
 and Excise, which had been 35,000 in 1657, were 
 farmed for 70,000 in 1658. The impropriate tithes 
 had risen from 6,000 to 7,600. The casual 
 revenue had doubled itself 10 . 
 
 The financial question was still grave enough. 
 The expenses of the army in Scotland and Ireland 
 brought out a final deficit of 320,000 a year in the 
 three kingdoms, and there was a standing debt of 
 
 1 Thurloe, iv. 526530. 2 Thurloe, vi. 445, 472. 
 
 3 Report of April 7, 1659. Journals. 
 
 4 Thurloe, iv. 526530. 
 
 5 Thurloe, vi. 445, 472. 6 Journals, April 7, 1659. 
 ..i t - 7 Thurloe, iv. 526530. 8 Thurloe, vi. 445, 472. 
 
 9 Journals, April 7, 1659. 
 
 10 Compare Hen. Cromwell's report (Thurloe, vi. 340) with the 
 report of April 7, 1659.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 121 
 
 nearly two millions and a half 1 (part of which had 
 probably been incurred after Oliver's death). But the 
 difference between the Parliament and the Protecto- 
 rate revenue is clear enough. The one is confused, 
 wasteful, and unintelligible; the other orderly, 
 economical, and simple. All through the latter there 
 are visible signs of increasing prosperity, the proofs 
 of a wise and trust-inspiring government. 
 
 Did Oliver Cromwell appoint Richard his succes- The sue- 
 sor? Richard was proclaimed immediately 2 , and 
 Thurloe, writing to Henry Cromwell 3 , expressly says 
 that the dying Protector had made the appoint- 
 ment. But the formal paper was never found, and it 
 is more than likely that Oliver was half-unconscious 
 when, if ever, he uttered the reported words. Regard 
 being had to the character of Oliver, it seems hard 
 to believe that he could have deliberately appointed 
 Richard, of whose fatal incapacity he was well aware. 
 In Henry Cromwell he had a son for whose talents 
 he had expressed the warmest admiration. He was not 
 the man to let the prejudice of primogeniture stand 
 in the way of the safety of his country and family. 
 
 However, Richard was proclaimed, and at once Proclama- 
 made Fleet wood Lieutenant-General 4 , and Henry ffafaird 
 Cromwell Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland 5 . Various Cromwell. 
 expressions of loyalty reached him from different 
 quarters 6 , and he decided at once to summon & Decides to 
 Parliament. Ludlow 7 gives an interesting account of 
 
 ment. 
 
 1 Report, and cf. Ludlow, n. 760. 
 
 2 Whitelock, 675. 8 Thurloe, vn. 372. 
 
 4 Thurloe, vn. 449. B Cromwelliana, p. 178. 
 
 e Whitelock, 676. 7 Memoirs, n. 615.
 
 122 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 a Council held at this time to decide upon the form 
 In what of the Parliament. Three questions were debated. 
 ' First, whether the representative House should be 
 
 summoned in its new or its old form. This was 
 decided in favour of the latter alternative. Secondly, 
 whether Scotch and Irish members should be 
 summoned. It was decided that they should be 
 summoned, but should not be allowed to sit without 
 the consent of the English members. Thirdly, 
 whether the members of the " other House " should 
 be summoned. This was, apparently, decided in the 
 affirmative 1 , at any rate, that was the course adopted. 
 Was this treachery, or was it sheer political 
 imbecility ? The Council could not have contrived a 
 more ingenious difficulty. To allow an election on 
 the old basis, to confront the representatives thus 
 chosen, burning to avenge their wrongs, with a new 
 House which represented prominently the victories of 
 their hated oppressor, and to leave them with another 
 body of sixty men, whose votes might turn the scale, 
 dependent on their arbitrary caprice, was to make as 
 certain a provision for anarchy as could well be 
 imagined. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion of 
 treachery. Lambert had refused to take the oath to 
 the new constitution 2 , and was in retirement, but 
 might have been influential 3 Fleet wood was dis- 
 appointed at not receiving the first position in the 
 
 1 Thurloe, vn. 578. (Of course this was the Cromwellite 
 Upper House, not the old House of Lords.) 
 
 2 Ludlow, n. 593. 
 
 3 .He shewed some opposition to the Bill for Eecognition later 
 on. Burton, in. 32.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 123 
 
 array 1 . And there was, doubtless, a general feeling 
 of uneasiness at the substitution of Richard for his 
 father. 
 
 On the 27th Jan. 1659, the Parliament met 2 . Richard's 
 There had been some attempts to secure Government ^ Z / a " 
 seats 3 , and the Scotch and Irish members were 
 mostly officials. The author of a contemporary 
 pamphlet 4 says that the members of the Rump tried 
 hard to get seats, but were unsuccessful. This 
 statement is not borne out by the lists and the 
 reports. Haselrig was returned, Vane was returned, 
 Scot, Bradshaw, Okey, and Ludlow were returned 5 . 
 About 400 members attended the opening ceremony 6 . 
 All the iniquitous old boroughs were revived 
 Camelford, Grampound, Tregony, Berealston, Hindon, 
 Heytesbury and Old Sarum ; Haslemere, with its 29 
 voters 7 , Castle Rising, with its 35 8 . Ludlow slipped 
 in without taking the oath 9 . Others were not so 
 squeamish. 
 
 Richard himself gave the signal for the storm by Its 
 instructing Thurloe to introduce a bill to recognise co 
 his title 10 . This was, after much opposition, read a 
 second time on the 7th February 11 , but the Government 
 
 1 Thurloe, vn. 449. 
 
 * Whitelock, 676. Cromwelliana, 181. 
 
 3 Thurloe, vn. 574, 597. 
 
 4 England's Confusion, Somers Tracts, vi. 525. 
 
 5 Cf. list in Domestic State Papers, Interregnum, Vol. cc. 66 
 (not printed). 
 
 6 Burton, in. 3. 7 Burton, in. 325. 
 Burton, in. 50. 9 Memoirs, n. 623. 
 
 10 Bethell, Narrative of the Late Parliament. Somers Tracts, 
 vi. 479, and England's Confusion, Somers Tracts, vi. 515. 
 u Journals. Whitelock, 677.
 
 124 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 were at last obliged to be content with a simple 
 resolution of recognition, to be afterwards qualified 
 by restraining clauses 1 . Even this moderate success 
 drove the Republicans to extreme methods. "All 
 that could be done," says Ludlow, "was only to 
 lengthen out their Debates and to hang on the 
 Wheels of the Chariot, that they might not be able 
 to drive so furiously 2 ." It was the first instance of 
 methodical obstruction, the obstruction which knows 
 that it can do nothing else but obstruct. The House 
 was wonderfully inconsistent in its action. It ex- 
 pelled several members, on the ground that they had 
 acted against the Parliament 3 , though the only 
 authorities for the expulsion were contained in 
 documents which it refused to recognise. Then it 
 discussed for a fortnight the question of the Scotch 
 and Irish members 4 , and at length allowed them to 
 sit in a purely temporary capacity, as members of the 
 existing Parliament 5 . It disturbed the revenue by 
 bringing in a bill to take away the Customs and 
 Excise 6 , and only after great delay resolved to 
 transact with the " other House 7 ." It never reached 
 the length of deciding upon the ceremonies to be 
 used on such occasions 8 . 
 
 Meanwhile, the adversary was not idle. " Our 
 enemies," said Mr Reynolds in the House on the 
 30th March, "are flocking to town, and take an 
 
 1 Burton, in. 287. 2 Memoirs, n. 624. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 677. 4 Burton, iv. 193, 195. 
 
 * Burton, iv. 219, 242. 6 Whitelock, 677. 
 
 7 Burton, iv. 293. 
 
 8 Cf. Debates, April 5 7, in Burton, iv.
 
 THE PROTECTORATE. 125 
 
 advantage of a Parliament sitting, to act all their 
 plots 1 ." 
 
 On the 6th of April the army resolved to interfere, Action of 
 to prevent the threatened disturbances. The chiefs the army ' 
 presented to Richard a petition complaining of the 
 encouragement afforded by the quarrels of the 
 Parliament to the Royalist plotters, the want of pay, 
 and the absence of decided policy 2 . 
 
 The Parliament met these proceedings by open Defied by 
 defiance. On the 18th April they voted w that 
 during the sitting of Parliament, there shall be no 
 general council or meeting of the officers of the army, 
 without the direction, leave, and authority of His 
 Highness the Lord Protector and both Houses of 
 Parliament 3 ," and added a resolution that no officer 
 should continue to hold his command unless he would 
 sign an undertaking not to interrupt the meetings of 
 Parliament*. 
 
 The resolution of the army was quickly taken. The army 
 At the opening of the Parliament there had been 
 
 three parties among the officers the Republicans, to dissolve 
 the Wallingford House party, headed by Fleetwood, u am ent. 
 Desborough, Sydenham and Berry, who had at first 
 been supporters of Richard, but who had grown 
 lukewarm as time went on, and Richard's own party, 
 consisting of men whom his father had promoted, 
 men such as Ingoldsby, Goffe, Whalley, Broghill, and 
 Philip Jones 6 . On the defiance of the Parliament 
 
 1 Burton, iv. 302. 
 
 2 Whitelock, 678. Of. copy of Petition in T. P. ix. 57. 
 
 3 Burton, iv. 457. 4 Burton, iv. 461. 
 5 Ludlow, n. 631.
 
 126 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 the Wallingford House party joined the Republicans 1 , 
 and waited on Richard in the month of April urging 
 him to dissolve the Parliament 2 . To this persuasion 
 Richard yielded, and the dissolution was proclaimed 
 on the 22nd 3 . The Commons made some attempt at 
 resistance, but were easily overpowered 4 . On the 
 reappearance of the Rump, which soon followed, 
 Retire- Richard retired with a pension 5 , and the Protectorate 
 
 Sal WaSOVer ' 
 
 1 Ludlow, n. 634. 
 
 2 Ludlow, n. 642. Calendar, xn. 336. Cromwelliana, 183. 
 
 3 Cromwelliana, 183. 
 
 4 England's Confusion, Somers Tracts, vi. 519. 
 
 5 Cromwelliana, 184. Whitelock, 680. Journals, May 25, 1659.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 
 
 FROM April 22, 1659, when Richard's Parliament The year 
 was dissolved, until April 25, 1660, when the Conven- 1659 - 60 - 
 tion Parliament met, there was no accepted govern- 
 ment in England. During this memorable year the 
 political history of England is a confused mass of 
 personal struggles for power, illuminated only by the 
 steady persistence of the main body of the army in 
 its great political ideas. All the petty jealousies and 
 pedantic bickerings, which had been kept in check 
 by the firm hand of Cromwell, reappeared like Furies 
 let loose, and a tolerable existence can only have 
 been possible in England on the hypothesis previously 
 stated, that the great bulk of the nation had by this 
 time become profoundly indifferent to the struggle. 
 So long as the army held to the cause of the Revolu- 
 tion there was an insuperable barrier against the 
 return of the Stuarts, but when it gave up the cause 
 in despair there was nothing for it but a return to 
 the status quo. It may seem hardly worth while to 
 go into the details of the petty revolutions which 
 filled up the period, but apart from the interest that
 
 128 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 always attaches to the most minute facts, there is 
 some special instruction to be gained by tracing 
 the steps by which Charles, who at the beginning of 
 1659 was a vagabond on the face of the earth, 
 became within sixteen months, and without striking 
 a blow, undisputed monarch of the three kingdoms. 
 The On May 6, 1659, a committee of fifteen officers, 
 
 officers 
 
 invite the including Fleetwood, Haselrig, Berry, and Cooper, 
 Rump to presented to Lenthal, the old Speaker of the Rump, 
 a declaration inviting the members expelled on April 
 20, 1653, to return to their seats 1 . After some 
 demur Lenthal and 41 other members 2 complied, 
 and on the following day issued letters to the 
 rest of the Independent members of the Long Par- 
 liament, calling upon them to return 3 . The secluded 
 Presbyterians claimed admittance, but without suc- 
 cess 4 . 
 
 The Com- The first act of the recalled Parliament had been 
 Safety.' to appoint a Committee of Safety of seven persons, 
 Fleetwood, Haselrig, Vane, Ludlow, Sydenham, Sal- 
 wey, and John Jones, four of whom were to be a 
 quorum 5 . The committee was only appointed for 
 eight days, but it went on sitting at least till May 
 19 8 , and in an informal way was in existence much 
 later 7 . On the 9th, a rumour having arisen of an 
 immediate invasion by Charles, four new members 8 , 
 
 1 Whitelock, 678. Declaration in T. P., ix. 125. 
 
 3 England's Confusion, Somers Tracts, vi. 520. 
 
 3 Journals, May 7, 1659. 4 Somers Tracts, vi. 522. 
 
 5 Journals, May 7, 1659. Whitelock, 678. 
 
 6 Journals, May 19, 1659. 7 Journals, July 19, 1659. 
 8 Journals, May 9, 1659.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 129 
 
 Lambert, Desborough, Berry, and Scot, were added. 
 The immediate business of the committee was the 
 raising of money, the arrest and imprisonment of 
 suspected persons, and the remodelling of the army 1 . 
 In pursuance of this last object the committee The Com- 
 recommended the appointment of a governing com- m ]f*" m f 
 mission of five officers 2 , and the House adopted the 
 suggestion, selecting, however, seven names, those of 
 Fleetwood, Lambert, Haselrig, Desborough, Berry, 
 Vane, and Ludlow, on the 13th 3 . Between the dates 
 of the recommendation of the committee and the The 
 appointment of the Commission, viz. on May 12, the f tlie 
 officers of the army presented a petition in which 
 their views were fully stated. The petition was 
 signed, amongst others, by Fleetwood, Desborough, 
 Berry, Barkstead, Robert Lilburne, and Hacker. 
 The demands of the officers comprised 
 
 1. Liberty of person and property under a free- 
 state, without a single person, kingship, or 
 House of Peers. 
 
 2. Reform of the law-courts. 
 
 3. Indemnity for all engaged in political enter- 
 prises since the expulsion of the Rump. 
 
 4. Confirmation of laws made since that date, 
 and not yet repealed. 
 
 5. Payment of public debts incurred since the 
 same date. 
 
 6. Toleration for all who believe in the Trinity 
 and the inspiration of the Scriptures, except 
 Papists and prelatists. 
 
 1 Calendar, xn. 343, 344, 375. 2 Journals, May 11, 1659. 
 
 3 Journals, May 13, 1659. 
 
 J. 9
 
 130 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 7. Maintenance of a " godly, faithfull, painfull, 
 and Gospel-preaching Ministry." 
 
 8. Reformation of universities and schools. 
 
 9. Removal from office of all who had aided the 
 Royalist cause or been open mockers of reli- 
 gion since May 20, 1642. 
 
 10. The placing of power in the hands of godly 
 persons. 
 
 11. Provision for a succession of Parliaments. 
 
 12. Acknowledgment of Fleet wood as Comman- 
 der-in-chief. (This was not an essential.) 
 
 13. Legislative power in the hands of a Repre- 
 sentative House " and of a select Senate, 
 co-ordinate in power, of able and faithfull 
 persons eminent for godliness." 
 
 14. Executive power in a Council of State. 
 
 15. Payment of the debts of Oliver and his son, 
 and a provision for the family 1 . 
 
 I have set out this petition at length because it 
 seems to be of the first importance to realize the 
 steady consistency of the army during the crises of 
 the year. The points insisted upon in the petition 
 represent almost exactly the views of Oliver himself 
 as they are expressed in the Petition and Advice, 
 with, of course, the exception of the " single person " 
 clause, which was rendered necessary by Cromwell's 
 death. 
 
 The new On May 13, the Parliament decided to replace 
 
 state. 1 the Committee of Safety by a Council of State, to 
 
 1 Petition in full, T. P. ix. 96 ; Summary in Calendar, xn. 
 345.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. i31 
 
 consist of thirty-one members 1 , of whom twenty-one 
 should be members of the House and the remainder 
 outsiders 2 . The names of the Council include nearly 
 all the well-known republicans, Bradshaw, Haselrig, 
 Vane, Scot, and Harrington ; of the moderate men, 
 Fairfax and Whitelock ; of the army chiefs, Fleetwood 
 and Lambert 3 . A call of the House at this time 
 produced seventy-seven answers*. 
 
 On the 17th, appeared an address from the army The 
 in Scotland, practically agreeing with the views 
 the English army 6 , and it now almost seemed as if 
 there was a prospect of settlement. 
 
 Unfortunately, in the general ferment of the Pariia- 
 political atmosphere, the element of suspicion began "^" te t ^ e 
 to shew itself. On May 18, Whitelock was accused forces with 
 of corresponding with Charles 6 , and in their jealousy 
 the Parliament took precautions which could not 
 fail to rouse indignation. On May 28, the House 
 had the names of all the officers in six regiments, 
 those of Fleetwood, Lambert, Ludlow, Lilburne, Berry, 
 and Hacker 7 , reported to it, and went through them 
 seriatim with a view to approving their fidelity. On 
 June 1, a similar process was applied to the officers 
 of several ships 8 . These invidious steps were followed 
 on June 6, by a vote that all commissions should be 
 signed by the Speaker 9 , in opposition to a proposal 
 which had been introduced that they should be 
 
 1 Whitelock, 679. 2 Ludlow, n. 656. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 679. 4 Journals, May 14, 1659. 
 
 5 Whitelock, 679. 6 Whitelock, 680. 
 
 7 Journals, May 28, 1659. 8 Journals, June 1, 1659. 
 
 9 Whitelock, 681. 
 
 92
 
 132 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 signed by Fleetwood 1 . On the 7th, the form of 
 commission was settled in the House ; the essential 
 part being a command to obey the Council of State 
 or the Parliament and the superior officers, a clause 
 fatal to military discipline 2 . These proceedings 
 naturally gave rise to great discontent in the army, 
 which was hardly allayed by a resolution arrived at 
 to dissolve before May 7, 1660 s . 
 
 Conduct of In other respects the Parliament shewed a fatal 
 the Par- 
 liament, incapacity to appreciate facts. They treated the 
 
 question of the Union with Scotland as still open 4 . 
 They recalled Henry Cromwell from Ireland 5 , and 
 restored the Parliamentary Commissioners, dismissing 
 the Council which had done such good work 6 . On 
 June 15, they set free some of Cromwell's prisoners 7 . 
 These had never been very many, and were probably 
 now the fewest consistent with safety. On July 31, 
 1654, there had been forty-five in the Tower 8 , but on 
 September 1, following, Cromwell had set twenty- 
 three at liberty 9 . In January, 1659, five months 
 after his. death, there were only twenty-five 10 , and 
 these had since been reduced to eighteen 11 . 
 Finance. The accounts from the finance committee were 
 
 alarming. On May 20, they reported that there 
 were arrears owing to the army and navy of nearly 
 two millions 12 . On June 8, the committee presented 
 
 1 Journals, June 6. 2 Journals, June 7. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 681. Journals, June 6, 1659. 
 
 4 Whitelock, 680. 5 Cromwelliana, p. 184. 
 8 Ludlow, ii. 665. 7 Journals, June 15. 
 
 8 Calendar, vi. 273. 9 Calendar, 353, 354. 
 
 10 Thurloe, vii. 598. u Thurloe, vn. 622. 
 
 12 Journals, May 20, 1659.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 133 
 
 another report, shewing that two millions and a 
 quarter would be required to meet the expense of 
 the forces to December 1, and that the utmost to be 
 expected from the Customs and Excise was a little 
 over 700,000*. To meet these deficiencies the 
 Parliament on June 18 voted the entirely inadequate 
 assessment of 50,000 a month in the three king- 
 doms 2 , and weakly haggled with the farmers of the 
 Excise, who were 200,000 3 in arrear, for an exten- 
 sion of time to settle their claims 4 . 
 
 As might have been anticipated, the friends of Activity 
 the exiled king were not slow to take advantage of Royalists 
 these difficulties. A passage in Clarendon 8 testifies 
 to the delight of the Royalists on the return of the 
 Rump, and to the increased facilities of conspiracy 
 on the withdrawal of the Protectoral system. A 
 wide-spread scheme for an insurrection was set on 
 foot 6 , and a part of it came to a head. Sir George 
 Booth, a member of Richard's Parliament, appeared Booth's 
 at the head of Royalist troops in Cheshire, and, risin 9- 
 though the rising was easily suppressed by Lambert, 
 the incident shewed the disunion in the nation. 
 Whitelock, himself a Presbyterian, expressly says 
 that Booth was supported by the Presbyterian 
 ministers, while the Independents offered to raise 
 three regiments for the Parliament 7 . By the Treaty 
 of the Pyrenees, which was completing about this 
 time, the quarrel of Spain and France was being 
 
 1 Journals, June 8, 1659. 2 Journals, June 18. 
 
 3 Journals, May 20, 1659. 4 Journals, July 4. 
 
 5 History, in. 522. 6 History, in. 525. 
 7 Whitelock, 682.
 
 134 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 compromised, and Charles confidently expected sup- 
 port from at least one of the contracting parties 1 . 
 
 In the face of these facts Parliament did make 
 some attempt at energy. On August 24, a monthly 
 assessment of 120,000 was proposed 2 , and on Sep- 
 tember 1 s , the vote was carried for a sum of 100,000. 
 On September 21, the House ordered the defaulting 
 excise-farmers to be taken into custody*. 
 
 Lambert. But the defeat of Booth had raised up a formid- 
 able rival to the Parliament. Lambert had long 
 fancied himself to be a neglected man. He had been 
 disappointed of the command in Ireland by the 
 appointment of Fleetwood to the deputyship. He 
 had been angered by the clause in the Petition and 
 Advice which gave Cromwell leave to name his own 
 successor. The command against Booth and its 
 success emboldened him to seek revenge. 
 Supported On September 22, the officers of the " Northern 
 ty l *f. , Brigade," as Lambert's troops were called, presented 
 army. a petition to the House, demanding arrears of pay, 
 and claiming that Lambert should be appointed 
 Major-General of the army 5 . On the following day 
 the House met the petition by a resolution that no 
 its more general officers should be appointed 8 . The rest 
 
 man s. Q ^ Q troops took up the cause, and on October 5 
 Desborough presented another petition 7 , signed by 
 Lambert, and apparently approved also by Fleetwood 8 , 
 
 1 Clarendon, in. 538. " Journals. 
 
 3 Journals. 4 Journals. 
 
 5 Whitelock, 684. 
 
 6 Whitelock, 685. Journals, Sept. 23, 1659. 
 i Whitelock, 685. Journals, Oct. 5. 
 
 8 Thurloe, vn. 755.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 135 
 
 which contained the formal demands of the army 
 The petition claimed 
 
 1. " Countenance " for the officers of the army, 
 especially for those of the Northern brigade- 
 
 2. Punishment of maligners of the army. 
 
 3. Liberty for the army to petition the Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 4. Payment of arrears. 
 
 5. Recognition and employment of those who 
 had remained faithful during the insurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 6. Freedom from interference in discipline. 
 
 7. The appointment of officers with the appro- 
 val of a " Committee of Nomination " chosen 
 from the army. 
 
 8. Provision to prevent the expiry of Fleetwood's 
 commission 1 . 
 
 On the following days the House considered these Their 
 demands seriatim. To the first it gave a general 
 assent ; the second it refused ; the third it allowed, Parlia 
 with a caution ; in answer to the fourth it voted two 
 months' pay to the troops; to the fifth it gave a 
 general assent. Here it stopped, and, suddenly 
 veering round, passed a resolution depriving Lam- 
 bert, Desborough, Berry, and Kelsey of their com- 
 missions, apparently for some correspondence with 
 Colonel Okey 2 . The remainder of the petition it 
 referred to a committee, and vested the government 
 of the army in seven commissioners, Fleetwood, 
 Monk, Ludlow, Haselrig, Walton, Morley, and Over- 
 
 1 Cf. the petition in T. P. XLVI. 
 
 2 Whitelock, 686. Journals, Oct. 12, 1659.
 
 136 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 ton 1 . This vote, according to Fleetwood's statement 8 , 
 was assented to by only forty-two members. 
 Dissolu- The next day Lambert forcibly dissolved the 
 
 Lambert. Parliament 3 , actual bloodshed being only just avoi- 
 ded 4 . Clarendon tells a story of Lambert's conduct, 
 which, if it be true, shews that Lambert had an 
 almost Cromwellian touch of decision and rapidity in 
 him 5 , but his behaviour in a subsequent crisis, when 
 he conspicuously failed in nerve, renders the account 
 very improbable. 
 
 Thus ended the first episode of the year of 
 anarchy. 
 
 The On the same day (October 13) the Council of 
 
 Officers. State, apparently overcome by the force of circum- 
 stances, agreed to allow the council of officers to 
 make a new constitution 6 . On the 17th, this Council 
 appointed Fleetwood commander-in-chief and Lam- 
 bert major-general in England and Scotland 7 , thus 
 complying with the wishes of the Northern Brigade, 
 but running the serious risk of offending Monk, 
 whose appearance on the scene was now imminent. 
 New Army The Council placed the appointment of all other 
 sion officers in the hands of a committee of six, comprising 
 Fleetwood, Lambert, Vane, Desborough, Berry, and 
 Ludlow 8 , and on October 18, drew up a formal 
 manifesto, justifying the conduct of the army 9 , which 
 
 1 Ludlow, ii. 722, and Journals, Oct. 12. 
 
 2 Answer to the Humble Remonstrance of Col. Morley, p. 11 
 (pub. Nov. 28, 1659. Camb. Lib. x. 28, 43). 
 
 Whitelock, 686. 4 Ludlow, n. 723726. 
 
 5 History, in. 543. 6 Whitelock, 686. 
 
 7 Whitelock, 686. 8 Whitelock, 686. Ludlow, n. 714. 
 
 Thurloe, vn. 765.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 137 
 
 appeared on the 27th, a previous hasty piece to the 
 like effect, entitled The Armies Plea for their present The 
 Practice, having also appeared '. The Declaration of 
 the 27th 2 , which was dated from Wallingford House, TheDecla- 
 Fleetwood's residence, charged Haselrig with a de- ration ' 
 liberate misrepresentation to the House of the actions 
 of the Northern Brigade, and the House itself with 
 a deliberate attempt to upset the whole of the 
 Cromwellian settlement by rushing through a Bill to 
 repeal all enactments made since the dissolution in 
 1653. No mention of this Bill appears on the 
 Journals of the House, and, though this is by no 
 means conclusive evidence, it is quite possible that 
 the army may have been mistaken. But it is more 
 than likely that Haselrig and the extreme Republi- 
 cans by their conduct at the crisis seriously and 
 unnecessarily irritated the army. Even Ludlow, a 
 staunch friend of the Republican party, says at the 
 time that Haselrig, " who took upon himself to be 
 the principal Manager of affairs in Parliament, was a 
 man of a disobliging carriage, sour and morose of 
 Temper, liable to be transported with Passion, and 
 to whom Liberality seemed to be a Vice 3 ." But the 
 patience of the army, notwithstanding their provoca- 
 tions, was strikingly shewn when on the 26th they 
 appointed a Committee of Safety with all the powers The new 
 of the recent Council of State 4 , for though the exact ^ 
 lists of the twenty-three names comprised in it differ 
 in one important particular as well as in minor details 
 in the two authorities who profess to record them 5 , 
 
 1 T. P. xvii. 931. 2 T. P. xvii. 167. 3 Ludlow, n. 718. 
 4 Whitelock, 687. 5 Whitelock, 687. Ludlow, u. 715.
 
 138 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Attempts 
 
 nwOon- 
 stitution. 
 
 both agree that the Republicans, Vane, Salwey, 
 Sydenham, Harrington, and Ludlow, were included, 
 as well as the moderate men, Whitelock and Strick- 
 land. Ludlow, Salwey, and Vane at first declined to 
 act 1 , but they must afterwards have relented, for we 
 find that they form half of the sub-committee of six 
 appointed on November I 2 , to "consider of a Form 
 f Government;" and on the 26th we find it recorded 
 by a member of the sub-committee 3 that they " pro- 
 ceeded in preparing a Form of Government, wherein 
 Vane was hard to be satisfied, but did much stick to 
 his own apprehensions." 
 
 During this crisis there was no lack of advice 
 from the philosophers. On October 20, Milton had 
 The written his Letter to a Friend concerning the Raptures 
 
 a Friend. f the Commonwealth*, in which he sadly reproaches 
 the army with their expulsion of the Parliament, 
 but evidently without any knowledge of the alleged 
 proceedings of October 10, relative to the repeal of 
 the Protectorate statutes. He urges the immediate 
 appointment of a Council of State, " whereof as 
 many to be of the Parliament, as are undoubtedly 
 affected to these two Conditions proposed," i.e. " Li- 
 berty of Conscience to all professing Scripture to be 
 the Rule of their Faith and Worship; and the 
 Abjuration of a Single person 5 ." (This advice was, 
 as we have seen, practically followed in the appoint- 
 ment of the Committee of Safety.) Mutual confidence 
 between this Council and the officers is to be secured 
 
 1 Ludlow, ii. 730. 
 8 Whitelock, 690. 
 8 Letter to a Friend, n. p. 780. 
 
 2 Whitelock, 687. 
 
 4 Prose Works, n. 779781.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 139 
 
 by a league to ensure the maintenance of all in their 
 posts for life ; and " That the Army be upheld," 
 says Milton sadly, " the necessity of our Affairs and 
 Factions will constrain long enough perhaps, to 
 content the longest Liver in the Army." " If such 
 a Union as this," he continues, "be not accepted 
 on the Army's part, be confident there is a Single 
 Person underneath 1 ." 
 
 Milton's plan had at least the merit of possibility. 
 The weakness of it was that it depended on the 
 continuance of the agreement between the Republi- 
 can and the military members of the Committee of 
 Safety. But Prynne, who at this crisis began to 
 bestir himself again, put out, on October 31, a rival 
 plan which is too characteristic of Presbyterian pe- 
 dantry to pass unnoticed. Prynne's plan, which was Prynne. 
 contained in a pamphlet with a title unusually long, 
 even for Prynne 2 , was that the peers should volun- 
 tarily assemble and issue writs for a Parliament 
 " according to the former usage;" that the freeholders 
 should likewise voluntarily choose their own sheriffs 3 
 
 1 Letter to a Friend, Prose Works, u. p. 780. 
 
 2 See A Sliort, Legal, Medicinal, Useful, Safe, Easy Prescrip- 
 tion to recover our Kingdom, Church, Nation from their present 
 dangerous, distractive, destructive Confusion; and worse than 
 Bedlam Madness : seriously recommended to all English Freemen, 
 who desire Peace, Safety, Liberty, and Settlement. (Somers Tracts, 
 vi. 533. Camb. Lib. x. 28, 42. ) 
 
 3 It is thoroughly characteristic of Prynne that he recommends 
 the election of sheriffs, not on grounds of expediency, but as a 
 matter of strict legality, quoting, as his authority, certain ancient 
 charters and writs which, if not actually overridden by express 
 statute, had been obsolete for centuries.
 
 140 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 at the next county courts, and thereupon proceed to 
 election of members. Against any of the officers or 
 soldiers who should interfere with his scheme, Prynne 
 brandishes the terrors of treason. He seems quite 
 serious in believing that his plan is feasible. 
 Monk. But it is now high time that we turn to another 
 
 figure, whose appearance was so soon to exercise such 
 a great influence on affairs. By general testimony 1 
 Monk's rule in Scotland had been a brilliant success. 
 On the death of Cromwell he had found himself with 
 a disciplined army in command of a tranquil and 
 prospering country He had accepted Richard's 
 succession without apparent demur, but was observed 
 to betray a jealousy of Lambert's subsequent rise in 
 power'''. Still, however, he remained inactive till the 
 ferment occasioned by Lambert's suppression of the 
 Parliament had subsided, when he was approached 
 by Fleetwood and the Committee of Safety with a 
 view to a junction of forces 3 . Fleetwood's letter was 
 dated November 4 4 . 
 
 Professes Although it is probable that he never forgave 
 wiih, a Fleetwood for the appointment of Lambert as his 
 Fleetwood. superior officer in Scotland, Monk professed acquies- 
 cence, and sent commissioners to treat with Fleet- 
 wood's emissaries on the terms of an union 5 . Ludlow 
 says 6 that this step was merely intended to delay 
 matters till the expiration of the assessment in 
 January brought affairs to a crisis ; and Coke relates 7 
 
 1 Coke, Detection, 410. Burton, iv. 168. Clarendon, m. 549, &c. 
 
 2 Detection, 411. 3 Whitelock, 688. 
 4 Whitelock, 688. 5 Whitelock, 689. 
 6 Memoirs, n. 750. 7 Detection, 412.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 141 
 
 that Monk was enraged when he discovered that his 
 commissioners had actually made terms, which they 
 very soon did. The terms provided for a committee 
 of nineteen (nine officers and ten civilians), to settle 
 the qualifications for members of a new Parliament, 
 and a council, consisting of the superior officers in 
 the army, fleet and garrisons, to frame a constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 Monk now saw that it was necessary to strike. Prepares 
 He accordingly summoned a convention of two depu- ^cotiand 
 ties for every shire and one from each borough in 
 Scotland, with a view to securing the peace of his 
 government during his absence 1 . The accounts of 
 this convention vary. Whitelock 2 says that Monk's 
 solicitations met with little response ; but Coke, who 
 seems better informed of Monk's movements, alleges 3 
 that the convention voted a subsidy of 30,000 and 
 a force of 20,000 men. 
 
 At any rate Monk seems to have felt himself Begins his 
 safe. in leaving Scotland for a while, and, soon after, '"' 
 started southward on that mysterious march which 
 held England spell-bound during the winter of 
 1659 1660. At first he had to encounter difficulties is 
 and desertions 4 , but gradually encouragements also s ^P m 
 appeared. The army in Dublin secretly tendered The Irish 
 its allegiance to him 5 . At York he was warmly y ' 
 received by the city 6 , and by Fairfax, who, so Claren- 
 
 ... . . . Fairfax. 
 
 don says 7 , was at this time in receipt of a commission 
 
 1 Whitelock, 690. * Memorials, 690. 
 
 3 Detection, 413. 4 Detection, 412. 
 
 5 Ludlow, ii. 781806. 6 Detection, 416. 
 7 History, in. 554.
 
 142 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 from the king, but did not venture to hint a resto- 
 ration, even to Monk. Before he reached London 
 Monk had received addresses of welcome from 
 Devonshire 1 , Bedford and Norfolk 2 , Leicester 3 , 
 Warwick 4 , Yorkshire 5 , Chester, Salop, Stafford 6 , 
 and Oxfordshire 7 . The London apprentices, not an 
 entirely unimportant body since the changes of 
 fortune in Royalist families had sent youths of good 
 birth to seek their fortune in trade 8 , also sent in a 
 petition 9 . 
 
 Disunion Meanwhile the Committee of Safety had fallen 
 Committee entirely to pieces. On December 13, the army had 
 of Safety, once more published resolutions reiterating their 
 political demands 10 . There was no change in them. 
 But the committee, composed of irreconcilable ele- 
 ments, was a bundle of jealousy and confusion. 
 Whitelock ventured openly to propose the recall of 
 Charles. Fleetwood consented, but was afterwards 
 overborne by the Republicans 11 . Ludlow proposed 
 the return of the Rump, but was also overruled 12 . 
 
 The situation was certainly very difficult. The 
 assessment would expire in January, the Excise and 
 Customs on December 31, and the committee pos- 
 sessed no machinery to raise money. Monk was 
 marching steadily on London with his army. The 
 Royalists were daily becoming bolder. There was 
 
 I Calendar, xin. 330. 2 Calendar, xm. 341. 
 3 Calendar, xin. 335. 4 Calendar, xm. 340. 
 5 Calendar, xm. 356. 6 Calendar, xm. 341. 
 7 Calendar, xm. 361. 8 Clarendon, in. 483. 
 9 Calendar, xm. 344. 10 Whitelock, 691. 
 
 II Whitelock, 692. 12 Memoirs, n. 756.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 143 
 
 jealousy amongst the army chiefs. Two events only 
 seemed to point to a decision of some kind. The 
 fleet declared in favour of a return of the Rump 1 , 
 and two of the extreme Republicans, Haselrig and 
 Morley, were raising the nucleus of a Parliament 
 army in Portsmouth 2 . These slight omens were 
 accepted, and on December 26, by general consent 
 the Rump was allowed to return 8 . 
 
 The policy of the Parliament was at first firm Final 
 enough. They courted Monk, and displayed open 
 hostility to the English army. On the day following 
 their return they ordered the disbanding of all troops 
 raised without authority of Parliament, except those 
 commanded by Monk 4 . On December 31, they 
 appointed a new Council of State of thirty-one, of New 
 whom only twenty-one were to be members of state. 
 Parliament 8 . The names were chosen by ballot, and 
 included those of Monk, Vice-Admiral Lawson, 
 Cooper, and Fairfax, but not those of Fleetwood 
 and the English officers 6 . The Parliament secluded The Par- 
 Vane from the House 7 , expelled Sydenham, and sent cour t s 
 
 Salwey to the Tower 8 , for acting on the Committee Monk i and 
 
 defies the 
 
 of Safety. Lambert, Desborough, Berry, and other English 
 officers were ordered to leave town 9 , and, on their arm y- 
 delaying to retire, were threatened with imprison- 
 ment 10 . Articles of impeachment were exhibited 
 against Ludlow, who had failed to secure Dublin for 
 
 1 Ludlow, ii. 777. 2 Ludlow, n. 763, 781. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 692. Journals. 4 Journals, Dec. 27, 1659. 
 
 5 Whitelock, 694. 6 Journals, Jan. 2, 1660. 
 
 7 Whitelock, 694. 8 Journals, Jan. 17. 
 
 9 Whitelock, 694. 10 Journals, Jan. 14.
 
 144 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Finance. 
 
 The city 
 shews 
 itself 
 hostile to 
 the Par- 
 liament. 
 
 the Parliament 1 . On January 6, Monk was formally 
 invited to London 3 . On the 25th, he was met by 
 Parliamentary Commissioners (Scot and Robinson) 
 at Leicester 3 , and on February 6, he was obsequiously 
 received by the House 4 . 
 
 But the arrival of Monk had not cleared away 
 difficulties. Apparently the House had by this time 
 realized the necessity of conciliating the main body 
 of the army, for, in curious contrast with their 
 treatment of the officers, they had on January 23 
 published a Declaration of Policy, in which nearly all 
 the principal claims of the army were recognised 5 . 
 They had made some progress towards a settlement, 
 by resolving that a new Parliament should be called 
 under the distribution scheme of 1653 6 , with the 
 substitution of the old forty-shilling franchise for the 
 household suffrage 7 . They had continued the Cus- 
 toms and Excise for three months 8 . 
 
 There was in fact need for prompt action of some 
 kind. The finance committee on February 2 re- 
 ported 9 that the revenue from October 12 to Dec. 
 27 (not including the assessment) had been less than 
 115,000, or just half its proper amount. At this 
 crisis, the City of London, the mainstay of the House 
 in former troubles, shewed signs of revolt. Coke 
 says that the Common Council had formally resolved 
 to pay no more taxes until a free Parliament was 
 
 1 Whitelock, 694. 
 
 s Whitelock, 695. 
 
 Camb. Lib. x. 28, 42. 
 
 7 Journals, Feb. 8. 
 
 9 Journals. 
 
 2 Calendar, xin. 303. 
 4 Whitelock, 696. 
 6 Journals, Feb. 4, 1660. 
 8 Journals, Dec. 27, 1659.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 145 
 
 elected 1 . At any rate the House and the City The Par- 
 became enemies, and the former took a very high- 
 
 handed course. They ordered Monk to dismantle Monk to , 
 
 , dismantle 
 the walls of London and break down the gates , and the walls. 
 
 passed a resolution to alter the constitution of the 
 City 3 ._ 
 
 With some hesitation Monk obeyed the order, He obeys, 
 but, on venturing to suggest a milder course for the C o unse is 
 future, he was sharply reprimanded by the House 4 , modera- 
 This foolish step was followed by another not calcu- 
 lated to conciliate the popular general. On February 
 11, Parliament passed an Act appointing commission- 
 ers for the government of the army 5 . Although his 
 name was included in the five proposed as commis- 
 sioners under the Act 6 , Monk disapproved of the 
 policy of the measure 7 ; and it is evident that the 
 former ardour of the House on his behalf was cooled, 
 for a proposal to make him an essential member of 
 the quorum was rejected 8 , and it is probable that 
 in any case he was disappointed at not receiving 
 the sole command. On January 12, he offered his He 
 friendship to the City, and was received with en- the Par- 
 thusiasm 9 . liament. 
 
 And now the cry for a " free Parliament," which " A free 
 had been rising in England in the wake of Monk's m "nt."~ 
 army, could no longer be disregarded. The ever- 
 active Prynne opened a tremendous battery of con- 
 
 1 Detection, 418. 2 Whitelock, 697. 
 
 3 Whitelock, 697. 4 Ludlow, n. 826. 
 
 5 Whitelock, 697. Journals, Feb. 11, 1660. 
 
 7 Whitelock, 695 (ed. 1732). 8 Journals, Feb. 11, 1660. 
 
 9 Whitelock, 697. Ludlow, n. 827. 
 
 J. 10
 
 146 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 Prynne. stitutional eloquence against the sitting House. In 
 his Case of the old Secured, Secluded and now Exclu- 
 ded Members, Briefly and truly Stated 1 , his Brief 
 Necessary Vindication of the Old and New Secluded 
 Members 2 and his Conscientious, Serious, Theological, 
 and Legal Quaeres propounded to the twice-dissipated, 
 self-created Anti-Parliamentary Westminster Juncto 3 , 
 he reviewed with bitter sarcasm the history of the 
 Rump, pointed out the absurdity of its claims to be 
 regarded as a constitutional body, and urged the 
 recall of the 203 survivors of the excluded members. 
 This time he did not appeal in vain. Parliament 
 offered heavy bribes 4 , but Monk was persuaded to 
 Return join the plan 5 , and on February 21, the long-banished 
 secluded members, " the first whereof was W. Prynn, tied to a 
 members, great Basket-Hilted Sword 6 ," returned to the House. 
 Monk's I n a speech made upon this occasion 7 Monk re- 
 for a commended the establishment of a Commonwealth, 
 settlement, without kingship or a House of Lords, a " moderate, 
 not rigid, Presbyterian government, with a sufficient 
 liberty for consciences truly tender," and the appoint- 
 ment of a Council of State to settle the governments 
 of Scotland and Ireland, and to summon a new 
 Parliament on the distribution of 1654. How far 
 this advice was genuine, it is difficult to say. Monk 
 was never troubled with consistency. 
 
 Acted on The House acted upon this advice. The mem- 
 
 fey the 
 House. 
 
 1 T. P., vii. 511. 2 T. P., vii. 519. 
 
 :i T. P., 583. 4 Journals, Feb. 15, 1660. 
 
 5 Whitelock, 698. There was also a petition from the Irish 
 officers in favour of the plan. (Thurloe, vii. 817.) 
 
 6 Detection, 419. 7 Somers Tracts, vi. 550.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 147 
 
 bers of the Hump had withdrawn in disgust 1 , and, 
 after the inevitable little revenge with regard to the 
 resolutions of December, 1648*, it passed a vote for 
 the meeting of a new Parliament on April 25 a , and 
 chose a Council of State, which comprised Monk, New 
 Fairfax, Cooper, Denzil Holies, William Waller, 
 Maynard, and St John, but none of the Republican 
 names of note 4 . On March 2, it accepted the Con- 
 fession of Faith of the old Assembly of Divines, with Confession 
 the exception of Articles 30 and 31 5 , and on March f Faith - 
 14, passed an Act establishing a scheme of Pres- 
 byterian church government 8 . The Covenant was Estabiish- 
 ordered to be republished 7 . On February 21, Monk pjjjjj^ 
 was made Captain-General and Commander-in-chief, nanism. 
 and the army commission vacated 8 . On March 5, 
 Monk was also given the joint command of the fleet 
 with Montagu 9 . On March 16, the Parliament 
 dissolved itself 10 , and on the following days writs for Summon- 
 a new Parliament, in the names of " The Keepers of ^ p" r 
 the Liberties of the Commonwealth of England 11 ," liament. 
 were issued on the old basis of representation. 
 
 Did the Parliament really desire a Restoration ? 
 It seems not unlikely. The aim of the Presbyterians 
 had always been, in theory at least, the maintenance 
 of the ancient lay constitution, and the recent 
 republication of the Covenant seems to shew that 
 
 1 Detection, 419. Ludlow, n. 864. 
 
 - Journals, Feb. 21, 1660. 3 Whitelock, 698. 
 
 4 Journals, Feb. 22, 1660. 5 Whitelock, 699. 
 
 6 Journals. ? Journals, March 5, 1660. 
 
 8 Journals, March 21, 1660. 9 Journals, March 2. 
 
 10 Journals, March 2. 1! Detection, 421. 
 
 102
 
 148 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 these views were unchanged. A speech is pre- 
 served in the Somers Tracts 1 , which, if it was really 
 delivered after the return of the secluded members, 
 shews that the House would allow Royalism to be 
 openly advocated. The House set free Sir George 
 Booth on bail 2 , and released Lord Craven's estate. 3 
 It placed the whole power of the army and navy in 
 the hands of a man whom it could not believe to be 
 ardently opposed to the Stuarts 4 . 
 
 Charles's policy was now very straightforward. 
 He had only to win Monk (Montagu was already 
 won), and the game was his own. 
 The The account of the negotiations given in Claren- 
 
 Boyalist ^ on 5 snews ^ na t Monk was a complete time-server. 
 policy. 
 
 He probably foresaw the result of the elections, but 
 
 he declined to commit himself until the facts were 
 beyond dispute. Then he made terms, and the 
 Restoration was accomplished. But the country 
 really committed suicide. Had the elections been 
 unfavourable to the Royalists, Monk would have 
 declined to risk a hair for the king ; in any event 
 except the very improbable one of an Independent 
 majority, he stood to win. A Presbyterian House 
 would very likely have offered him the Protector- 
 ship. 
 
 Elections But there was no chance of such an event. The 
 toCharlel armv holding disdainfully aloof, the Cavaliers in the 
 
 1 vi. 553. - Journals, Feb. 22, 1660. 
 
 3 Journals, March 15. 
 
 4 See also a pamphlet entitled A Discourse for a King and 
 Parliament (T. P. v. 147), published about this time. 
 
 5 History, in. 573574.
 
 THE YEAR OF ANARCHY. 149 
 
 counties and the middle-classes in the towns, the 
 one from zeal, the other from sheer weariness of 
 political conflict, exerted themselves to return Roy- 
 alist candidates. The writs excluded those who had 
 served under the late king 1 , but the exclusion was 
 disregarded. Lambert, who at a critical moment 
 escaped from the Tower, was captured by Monk's 
 officer 2 , failing at the last in personal courage. Mil- Milton. 
 ton made one more effort to save the Commonwealth 3 . 
 But Fairfax threw his weight into the scale, and it Fairfax. 
 only remained for the Parliament to vote the for- 
 malities. 
 
 These were very few. On April 25, the two The 
 Houses met. The Lords at first were only ten 4 , with 
 one exception old peers. But they rapidly increased, 
 till on the 27th they numbered 44 5 . On May 1, 
 Monk announced the arrival of letters from the king, 
 containing the well-known terms 6 . Only Monk's 
 army was recognised in the Declaration. The Pres- 
 byterian ministers made some attempt to secure a 
 promise of conformity to their views 7 , but without 
 success. The leading Cavaliers issued a declaration 
 disavowing revenge 8 , and the Parliament proclaimed 
 the king, without terms 9 . The English army, deserted 
 by its officers, made no sign, and silently disbanded. 
 
 1 Ludlow, ii. 860. 2 Whitelock, 701. 
 
 3 The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Commonwealth, 
 Prose Works, n. 783. 
 
 4 Lords' Journals, April 25, 1660. 
 
 5 Lords' Journals, April 27. 
 
 6 Journals, May 1, 1660. 7 Clarendon, in. 601. 
 8 Clarendon, in. 587. Journals, May 7.
 
 150 EXPERIMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 It is impossible not to feel a deep sympathy with 
 it. Upon its shoulders had fallen the burden and 
 heat of the day. Amid countless temptations it 
 had preserved a self-restraint and constancy of pur- 
 pose unparalleled in military annals. Had it chosen 
 to resist, there was nothing to oppose it. But it felt 
 that its work was done, and its members, with 
 honourable dignity, silently withdrew.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Aberdeen, 87 
 
 Act, of Union, 57 ; of Explanation 
 and Settlement, 63 ; of Oblivion, 
 105, 106 ; Excise, 109 
 
 Adjutators, 15 
 
 "Agreement of the People," 25, 
 78, 85, 86 
 
 Alkin, Elizabeth, 47 
 
 Alured, Col., 79 
 
 Anabaptists, the, 69, 93 
 
 Anarchy, year of, 127 
 
 Army, the, of the Commonwealth, 
 14, 15, 16 ; cost of, 36, 50, 51 ; 
 Petition of the, 129, 130 ; Peti- 
 tion of the Scotch, 131 ; Commis- 
 sion of, 136, 137 ; Declaration 
 of, 137 ; the Irish, 141 ; disband- 
 ing of Commonwealth, 149, 150 
 
 Assarts, 41 
 
 Assembly, the, 68, 69, 70, 71 
 
 Assessments, 42, 51 
 
 Assignations, 41 
 
 Ashley Cooper, 70 
 
 Barkstead, Sir J., 96 
 Baxter, Ed., 82 
 Bennet, Col., 67 
 Blake, Robert, 68, 70, 102 
 Book of Bates, 40, 108 
 Booth's Rising, 133 
 Bradshaw, John, 37, 89, 131 
 Bridge, Tobias, 97 
 Broghill, Baron, 81, 102, 103, 107, 
 120, 125 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, 22 
 Burnet, Bp., 81 
 
 Cabal, the, 1 
 
 Calves-Head Club, the, 19 
 
 Carey, 67 
 
 Carlyle quoted, 10, 19, 24, 70, 71, 
 90, 95, 97 
 
 Carucage, 38 
 
 Cess, 81 
 
 Charles I., 3, 41, 42 
 
 Charles II., 128, 131, 142, 148 
 Restoration of, 148150 
 
 Chancery, Court of, 82 
 
 Clarendon quoted, 1, 10, 24, 56, 
 58, 59, 83, 94, 133, 136, 141, 
 148 
 
 Coke's " Detection," 83, 95, 106 
 
 Committee of Safety, the, 128, 130, 
 137, 140, 142 
 
 Commonwealth, period of, under- 
 rated by public opinion, 1 ; by 
 historians, 2 ; army of, 14, 15 ; 
 Churches of, 18; clubs of, 19 - r 
 sects and factions of, 19 ; pedan- 
 try of, 22, 110 ; navy of, 49, 50 
 
 Confession of Faith, 113, 147 
 
 Constituent Assembly, the, 33 
 
 Cornwall, 84, 85, 95, 96 
 
 Council, the King's, 3 ; of the 
 North, 3 ; of Ireland and Wales, 
 3 ; of State, 26, 27, 33, 73, 74, 
 113, 130, 131, 138, 143, 147 ; of 
 Kilkenny, 59 ; of Cromwell, 67 ;
 
 152 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 the Scotch, 102, 103 ; of Officers, 
 129, 136 
 
 Court, of High Commission, 3 ; of 
 Chancery, 82 
 
 Courts Baron, 81 
 
 Covenanters, 56 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 8, 15, 24, 36, 
 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 64, 65, 67, 68, 
 71, 72, 76, 78, 79, 82, 83, 87, 92, 
 93, 94, 96, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 
 108, 110, 111, 115, 116, 117, 118, 
 127 
 
 Cromwell, Henry, 96, 103, 121, 132 
 
 Cromwell, Richard, 103, 121, 123, 
 127 
 
 Customs, the, 47, 133, 142, 144 
 
 Decimation Tax, the, 98 
 
 " Declaration of Policy," 144 
 
 Denmark, 83 
 
 Desborough, Gen., 67, 72, 79, 94, 
 
 95, 107, 125, 129, 134, 143 
 Devonshire, 85, 95, 96, 142 
 Diary of John Evelyn, 21 
 " Diggers," 19 
 " Doubling," 46 
 Dowell, ref. to, 42 
 Dunkirk, 118 
 
 Durham, 96 ; University of, 102 
 Dutch Eepublic, the, 65, 66 
 
 Edward IV., 84 
 
 Edward VI., 40 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 3, 40 
 
 English Historical Eeview quoted, 
 
 86 
 
 Essex, 85, 96, 102 
 Evelyn, John, Diary of, 21 
 Exchequers, 44 
 Excise Act, 109 
 Excise-farmers, 134 
 
 Excise, the, 48, 133, 142, 144 
 
 Faith, Confession of, 113, 147 
 Fairfax, 131, 141, 143, 149 
 Fifth- Monarchy men, 19, 79, 112 
 Finances, 132, 133, 144 
 Fleetwood, 68, 97, 107, 121, 125, 
 
 128, 129, 131, 132, 134, 136, 140, 
 
 142, 143 
 
 Fleming, Sir 0., 23 
 Forfeited lands, 60, 62 
 France, 83, 133 ; treaty with, 102 
 
 Gardiner, referred to, 4, 92 
 Gneist quoted, 2 
 Goldsmiths' Hall, 44 
 Greene, Giles, 49 
 Gurney House, 44 
 
 Haberdashers' Hall, 44 
 Hall, referred to, 47, 48 
 Hampshire, 85, 95, 102 
 Harrington's " Oceana," 16, 55, 64, 
 
 100, 131, 138 
 
 Harrison, Gen., 67, 72, 79 
 Haselrig, Sir A., 12, 23, 37, 76, 89, 
 
 93, 107, 108, 116, 117, 128, 129, 
 
 131, 137, 143 
 
 " Healing-Question," the, 104, 106 
 Henry VII., 40 
 Henry VIH., 3, 40, 111 
 Hidage, 38 
 
 High Commission, Court of, 3 
 Hispaniola, 102 
 Holland, 83 
 
 House of Lords, 6, 8, 149 
 Humble Address, the, 110, 134; 
 
 analysis of, 112 ; estimate of, 115 
 
 Impositions, 41, 47 
 Impost, the New, 42
 
 INDEX. 
 
 153 
 
 Independents, 20 
 
 Instrument of Government, the, 76, 
 
 78, 79, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 114, 
 
 116 
 Ireland, 58, 59, 63, 79, 80, 86, 88, 
 
 103, 120 
 
 Ireton, 59, 60, 70 
 Irish War, the, 36 
 
 Jamaica, 102 
 James L, 40, 47, 56 
 Jones, Col., 67 
 Jones, Michael, 59 
 Justices, 7, 99 
 
 Kilkenny, Council of, 59 
 King, Sir B., 88 
 
 Lambert, General, 67, 72, 79, 97, 
 
 122, 129, 133, 134, 136, 140, 143, 
 149 
 
 Lenthal, 128 
 
 Levellers, 23 
 
 Lilburne, John, 28 
 
 Lisle, Lord, 33 
 
 London, 96 ; Council of City of, 
 
 144 
 
 Long Parliament, the, 3, 12 
 Lord Mayor, the, 8 
 Lords, the House of, 6, 8 
 Ludlow, 59, 60, 70, 87, 106, 121, 
 
 123, 124, 137, 138, 140, 142 
 
 Majors -General, scheme of the, 94; 
 
 duties of, 97 
 
 Milton, 22, 66, 138, 139, 149 
 Mint, the, 81, 119 
 Monk, 68, 70, 81, 102, 120, 136, 
 
 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146 
 
 149 
 Montrose, defeat of, 56 
 
 Navy, the, 49 ; cost of, 49, 50 
 New Impost, the, 42 
 Newport, Treaty of, 6 
 Northern Brigade, Petition of, 134, 
 135 
 
 Oblivion, Act of, 105, 106 
 Officers, Council of, 129, 136 
 Okey, Col., 79, 123, 135 
 Ordinance, the self-denying, 70, 71 
 Ormonde, 59 
 
 Pack, Sir C., 110 
 
 Parliament, 2 ; assumption of 
 government by, 2; the Long, 3, 
 12 ; views of, 29 ; Acts of, 29 ; 
 relation to the army, 35 ; foreign 
 relations of, 63, 64; the Little, 
 73, 91 ; dissolution of Protect- 
 orate, 117 ; " a free," 145 
 
 "Parliament Joan," 47 
 
 Parliamentary Committees, 11 
 
 Parliamentary Journals, 30, 32, 45, 
 46, 49, 50, 51, 59, 74, 75, 81, 90, 
 117, 128, 143, 144 
 
 Pamphlets, 5, 107, 139, 146 
 
 Peers, creation of, 116 
 
 Penruddock, Sir J., 93, 94 
 
 Petition of Northern Brigade, 134, 
 135 
 
 Petty, Sir W., 61, 80 
 
 Pickering, Sir G., 67, 79 
 
 Portugal, 83 
 
 Presbyterians, 20, 147 
 
 President of the Council, 34 
 
 Prynne, 22, 139, 145, 146 
 
 Pym, 42 
 
 Pyrenees, Treaty of, 133 
 
 Ealeigh, Sir W., 65 
 Becognition, the, 89, 90
 
 154 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Representatives, 25, 26, 27 
 Restoration, the, 148 150; Monk's 
 
 share in, 148 
 Revenue, 38, 77, 103, 104, 113, 
 
 118120 
 
 Rochester, Earl of, 94 
 Rota Club, the, 19 
 
 Salters' Hall, 44 
 
 Santa Cruz, 108 
 
 Saunders, Col., 79 
 
 Salwey, Major, 43, 45, 48, 138, 
 
 143 
 Scobell, 43, 46, 52, 74, 81, 84, 89, 
 
 117 
 
 Scot and lot, 86 
 Scotch Boroughs, 86, 87 
 Scotch Council, the, 102, 103 
 Scotland, 55, 80, 86, 102,103, 120; 
 
 Union of, 56, 57, 132 ; petition of 
 
 Army in, 131; Monk's rule in, 
 
 140 
 
 Sects, 19 
 
 Self-denying Ordinance, the, 70, 71 
 Sequestrations, 43, 44 
 Sexby, Col., 93 
 Sheriffs, 8 
 
 Sindercomb's Plot, 110 
 Skippon, Gen., 34, 79 
 Somers Tracts, 7, 8, 15, 70, 77, 
 
 106, 123, 128, 139, 148 
 South Carolina, 83 
 Spain, 83, 133 
 Spanish War, the, 109 
 Stapley, Col., 67 
 Star-Chamber, Council of, 3 
 " Start," the, 56 
 
 Strickland, Sir W., 22, 67, 70 
 " Summer's Guard," the, 49 
 Sydenham, Col., 67, 79, 138, 143 
 
 Tallage, 38 
 
 Taxation, 38, 81, 99, 100 
 
 Temple, Sir J., 88 
 
 Thurloe, 18, 83, 88, 95, 96, 112, 
 
 121, 123 
 Thurloe Papers, the, 80, 83, 88, 95, 
 
 128 
 
 Tomlinson, Gen. 67 
 Treaty of the Pyrenees, 133 
 Tregony, 122 
 Tudors, 84 ; law of impeachment 
 
 under, 3 ; revenue of, 40 
 
 Union, of Scotland, 56, 57, 132; 
 Act of, 57 
 
 Vane, Sir H., 37, 48, 49, 104, 106, 
 119, 131, 138, 143 
 
 Wagstaff, Major, 93 
 
 Whitelock, referred to, 8, 11, 15, 
 33, 37, 44, 52, 53, 56, 59, 60, 67, 
 69, 74, 75, 76, 79, 81, 83, 84, 88, 
 102, 108, 109, 111, 123, 128, 133, 
 142, 143, 144 
 
 Weavers' Hall, 44 
 
 Weekly Meal Tax, 42 
 
 Wildman's Plot, 93 
 
 Wilson, Alderman, 33 
 
 Wylde, Chief Baron, 33 
 
 Yardley, F., 83 
 York, Monk at, 141 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. & SONS, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF 
 
 Cfte Cambrfoffe aamberstitp 
 
 CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 POLITICAL PARTIES IN ATHENS DURING 
 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, by L. WHIBLKY, M.A., 
 Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. (Prince Consort 
 Dissertation, 1888.) Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. Qd. 
 
 POPE GREGORY THE GREAT AND HIS RELA- 
 TIONS WITH GAUL, by F. W. KELLETT, M.A., Sidney 
 Sussex College, Cambridge. (Prince Consort Dissertation 
 1888.) Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 HonUon: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, 
 
 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, 
 
 AVE MARIA LANE.
 
 UCSOOTHERNREGIO^LUBRABYFAC,L,TY 
 
 001 061 127 5