turned away by his soldiers from the hall where the Parliament met. In his opening speech, he justified the war with Spain as matter of religious duty, and asked for liberal grants of money. He enlarged on the double danger to which England was exposed from the plots of loyalists and of levellers, and hence inferred the necessity of strengthening the existing government. He defended the system of military districts; but it is probable that this was only for the show of consistency, and that he had become dissatisfied with it, from fear both of the power which it conferred upon the Generals, and the irritation which it caused among the people. At all events, when a bill was reported in Parliament for its support, his son-in-law, Claypoole, opposed the measure; and when the 1657. Protector readily acquiesced in its defeat, the Jan. 29. gracefulness of the concession gave him new favor with the people, if it awakened some displeasure in the circle of his chief military adherents.1 Cromwell's For the present the Protector had nothing to complain of at the hands of the national council. They not only granted him large supplies, but, in the sequel of a series of deliberations and intrigues, which history cannot follow with any confidence, they adopted, by one hundred and twenty-three votes against sixtytwo, an "Humble Petition and Advice," entreat- be King. ing him "to assume the name, style, title, dignity, and office of King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the respective dominions and territories thereunto belonging." 1 At this time, if the identity of the name may be trusted, our old acquaintance, Sir Christopher Gardiner, (see Vol. I. 329,) turns up again. In the Fairfax Correspondence (IV. 138) is a letter dated "Calais, December 13, 1656," and signed by "Chr. March 27. Gardiner" and "R. Thomas." They call themselves "a couple of Americans." They had just come from England, where, it seems, they had been in quest of intelligence for the benefit of the exiled prince. March 31. Four days after this transaction, in the hall through which, a little more than eight years before, King Charles had been led to his death, the Protector received the Parliament which came to offer him the crown. He put them off with the reply, that "the thing deserved the utmost deliberation and consideration on his part." A deputation of a hundred officers Remonstrance of the officers. Feb. 27. had been with him, to assure him that the scheme for his assumption of royalty "was not pleasing to the army, and was matter of scandal to the people of God, and of great rejoicing to the enemy, and that it was also hazardous to his own person, and of great danger to the three nations." Insurrection of Venner. April 9. It was not safe to defy men so mighty alike in the Scriptures and in arms. There was no choice except between yielding to them and gaining them; and the latter expedient proved impracticable. While a series of conferences took place between the Protector and the Parliament, the republicans began to stir; the pulpits began to thunder and lighten; and a party of troops had to be ordered out to suppress a little insurrection in London, headed by one Thomas Venner, a cooper, lately returned from Salem in New England. The negotiation lingered, but the prospect of reconciling the military saints to the name of King did not brighten. A Remonstrance to the House, said to have been gotten up between the learned Owen, then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and Colonel Pride, who had expurgated the Long Parliament, is thought to have brought the transaction to a refusal of the close. On the day when it was presented, Cromwell sent for the House, and gave them his de Cromwell's crown. May 7. 1 Venner was made a freeman of Massachusetts in March, 1638 (Mass. Rec., I. 374), was a member of the Artillery Company in 1645 (Whitman, History of the Ancient and Honorable finitive answer; -"I cannot," he said, "undertake this government with the title of King." institutions archy. The title was expunged; but in its other arrangements the form of government sketched in the "Humble Petition and Advice" was adopted. The Chief Magistrate, still called Protector, was invested with the same functions as had been exercised by the kings of England. The ancient institutions of the realm were revived, Partial rewith some modifications, which it may be be-vival of the lieved that Cromwell expected to find opportu- of the monnity to revise and cancel. No provision was made for an hereditary transmission of the sovereignty; but the first monarch of the new dynasty was authorized to appoint his successor. Beside the Commons in Parliament, there was to be an "other House," which it was not thought prudent, as yet, to denominate a House of Lords. Its members were to be nominated by the Protector, but subject to confirmation or rejection first by the House of Commons, and then, if its decision was favorable, by the "other House," after it was formed. A yearly revenue was granted to the sovereign of 1,300,000 pounds sterling, with an addition of 600,000 pounds annually for three years. He was inaugurated with all the pomp of a coronation, except the wearing of a crown; and the Commons separated for six months. June 26. Jan. 20. When they came together again, it was, if the Protector's plan were carried out, to legislate in con- 1658. currence with the "other House." To this sixtytwo persons had been summoned. Some were persons of birth and property, and there were several lawyers and military officers. The Protector's sons, Richard and Henry, had seats. Of the ancient peerage, the Earls of Musgrave, Warwick, and Manchester, Viscount Say and Sele (the old friend of New England), Lord Wharton, Lord Eure, and Lord Falconberg (husband of one of Cromwell's daughters), had received writs; but only the two last named took their places. The control of Cromwell over the Commons had been fatally weakened by the promotion of several of his most considerable friends to the "other House." The new Constitution had also declared the Commons' House to Contumacy of the Parliament. be the judge of the qualifications of its own members; and by virtue of this provision, the members who had been excluded by Cromwell from its former session reclaimed their places. The Commons debated whether the "other House," addressed by Cromwell in his opening speech as "Lords," had as yet any legal authority to sit as a separate estate of the realm. In Parliament, in the army, in the City,— everywhere, there was a growing clamor for a restoration of the Commonwealth, with a government by a single representative assembly. The pay of the army was far in arrears; and the Pretender to the throne was gathering his friends in Flanders. But the Commons were deaf alike to the Protector's threats and entreaties, when he urged them for supplies, and would not so much as recognize his "other House," by answering its messages. From day to day his affairs went on from worse to worse. Keeping his counsel till the moment for executing it came, he suddenly dissolved the Parliament. The angry murmurs which broke out on all sides he silenced by a display of military force. Suspected officers were cashiered; other suspected persons were imprisoned or held to bail; conventicles were watched; and patrols of horse and foot prevented gatherings in the streets. Its dissolution. Feb. 4. Cromwell had never before been in the possession of power so extensive and so absolute as now. But he had never been so endangered and so afflicted. The public treasury was empty, and the public expenses were enormous. He was beset by a resolute hostility, which was ready to assume an organized and active form as soon as he should resort to the only legitimate method for obtaining pecuniary relief; while, on the other hand, no man knew better that an unpaid army is an unsafe dependence. A pamphlet, entitled "Killing no Murder," was widely circulated. It was said to have been written by his old friend, Colonel Titus,' and its doctrine was what its fierce title indicates. In the Protector's family there was estrangement and dissension. Some of them were republicans, and others were believed to favor the royal cause. His favorite daughter died, watched by him in her decline with an assiduity, which showed that from the torment of public cares a healthy, though bitter, domestic sorrow was a genuine relief. He was already ill with intermittent fever. The physicians used their best skill, and the congregations redoubled their prayers; but steadily his condition became more alarming, and in less than a month from the first access of his disease he expired. The day Oliver Cromof his death was the anniversary of the day of his last two great victories. 1 The authorship, however, is doubt ful. Titus claimed it after the Restoration. But Godwin (History of the Commonwealth, IV. 390), and, after him, Guizot (History of Oliver Crom Aug. 9. Death of well. Sept. 3. well, II. 299), attribute the work to Colonel Sexby. It is written with a ferocious power of thought and expression, which, even at this distant day, makes the reader shudder. |