1653]

THE LITTLE PARLIAMENT

703

action should be taken on the Bill till that conference was concluded. Great then was the astonishment of Cromwell and his friends when they heard on the following day that the Bill was being hastened through all its stages, with such haste, indeed, that it was not even properly engrossed on parchment, that it was to be passed on paper. The dishonesty of the proceeding roused Cromwell's anger. For weeks past he had been struggling against his wishes to dissolve the House, and was loyally determined that it should be, if possible, induced to retreat from its position with honour. His mind was now made up. Taking with him a few troopers, he hastened to the House (April 20), and took his seat as usual as a private member. But as the debate went on, his patience became exhausted. He stepped forward on to the floor of the House, and gradually warming to his subject, began to speak hard truths to the members. "What right had they," he asked, "to be rulers of England? Some were known drunkards, some loose livers," and so on. Finally, when members tried to call him to order, he summoned in his troopers. Harrison, who was with him, helped Lenthall from the chair; and the House took its departure, so little regretted by the nation, that, as Cromwell afterwards said, not even a dog barked as they left the place. Some of the expelled members were men of high the Long ability and character. Many of them afterwards appeared as friends and supporters of Cromwell, but it was plain at that time that they were bent on founding an oligarchical rule as prejudicial to English liberty as that of an arbitrary king.

Cromwell expels

Parliament.

Cromwell's own position was now a most difficult one. He was in fact the only constituted authority in the kingdom-the commander of all the troops raised or to be raised. He was, as he himself said and felt, the absolute master of the country. It was a position he had no wish to occupy; it suited neither his personal nor political views. He desired some final constitutional settlement, and thought of himself only as a man who had been providentially raised to a position in which he could maintain order while that constitution was being satisfactorily founded. He therefore at once proceeded to give effect to the project which the army had all along urged, and summoned an assembly of carefully selected men of well-approved life and religion.

Calls the Little

This assembly was known as the Little Parliament. It consisted of men of very respectable character and position in the country, some noblemen, some afterwards the founders Parliament. of noble houses, some merchants, and others. One of

July 4.

these merchants was a leather merchant in London of the name of Praise-God Barebone; the absurdity of the name gave a handle to ridicule, and the Parliament has been nicknamed Barebone's Parliament. It was a failure. As Cromwell himself afterwards confessed, the summoning of it was a mistake; the men chosen had, for the most part, gone too far in religious fanaticism and destructive social principles. The chief influence in it fell into the hands of the extreme party; and instead of confining themselves, as Cromwell would certainly have had them do, to a reform of existing institutions, they proceeded to a work of destruction. They passed a Bill entirely doing away with the Court of Chancery, and hints were heard of substituting the judicial arrangements of the Jews. They were proceeding also to destroy tithes, with a view of getting rid of all Church government. Afraid of what they were doing, and certain that their measures would not be approved by Cromwell-who, however radical in his love of personal excellence as contrasted with social or hereditary birth, was at heart a conservative, and loved what appeared to him the fundamental part of the English Constitution— the majority, in December, after a short session, voluntarily resigned into his hands the power which he had intrusted to them.

It dissolves
itself.
Dec. 12.

Cromwell made

the Instrument.

Cromwell was again sole master of England, and after much careful thought-the council of officers, and others interested in the nation, having now tried the plan of the army-he determined to try his own scheme of something monarchical. On Friday, Protector under December 16, a document was issued, called the Instrument of Government, by which he was given the title of Protector, associated with a Council of State, fifteen in number; and by this document a new and free Parliament was to be elected, 400 in number, the qualification both for electors and members being £200. Parliaments were to be triennial, and no Parliament was to be dissolved till after it had sat five months; there was some alteration in the distribution of seats; some rising towns elected members, certain decayed boroughs were disfranchised, and their members given to the counties. It differed principally from the plan of the Rump Parliament in two points, in the existence of a single Chief of the State, and in the fact that the members of the Long Parliament could only sit after re-election. The new Parliament was appointed to assemble on the anniversary of the battles of Dunbar and Worcester. The body of the nation again quietly accepted the change. It is not to be supposed that these repeated exertions of what appeared an arbitrary

1654]

THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT

705

power took place without exciting much anger. The excluded members of the Rump, the strong conscientious Republicans, and the whole class of Levellers were full of bitterness. But, on the whole, the better part of the nation acquiesced. The Council, which was drawn from men of various parties, was highly respectable in every way, and it may at least prove that there is much to be said for Cromwell that Milton, who had been the Foreign Secretary of the Long Parliament, willingly accepted the change, and continued to act under the new Government. Till the Parliament met, it was arranged that Cromwell's ordinances should have the force of law. For these months he was practically arbitrary, His vigorous and he used his power with vigour. We have seen that rule. his two great objects were the establishment of religion and the reform of law; the first of these he carried out upon a very liberal basis. He established a body of "Triers," and any man appointed to a benefice, whatever his particular form of belief may have been, unless he were a Romanist, having once satisfied these Triers as to the fundamental orthodoxy of his creed and the excellence of his life, was allowed to hold it. At the same time, in each county a commission was established for the exclusion of unfit clergy. With regard to the law, he issued an ordinance for the reform of Chancery, removing some of the enormous arrears to the common law courts. At the same time he began to foreshadow his foreign policy. Portugal found itself obliged to consent to his terms, although much incensed at the even-handed rigour with which Don Pantaleone Sa, the brother of the ambassador, had been executed for killing a man in a brawl. A close alliance was also contracted with Holland, Denmark, and Sweden.

Vowel's plot.

But, in spite of his success, his Government was constantly exposed to the plots of the two extreme parties. Discontent had frequently to be suppressed in the army, and a Royalist conspiracy, known as Vowel and Gerard's Plot, was discovered. Thirty troopers were to assassinate the Protector on his way to Hampton Court, and London was then to be raised in favour of the King. Both Vowel and Gerard, the chief conspirators, were executed, and several others imprisoned. In this state of feeling it was not without grave anxiety that the assembling of the new Parliament was watched. Declared Royalists had been Parliament. Sept. 3, 1654. excluded, but all other classes, neutrals as well as active Puritans, were admitted. When it assembled, it was found to consist of all parties, and the republicans were very strongly represented.

The reformed

Will not produce the Settlement.

It was opened with all the usual ceremonies, and Cromwell, addressing them in a speech of considerable length, pointed out the difficulties under which the nation had lain under the Long Parliament, its wars with Portugal and Holland, and threatened war with France; the suffering state of trade, and bad condition of the finances; explained to them his own conduct in continuing the taxes, in attempting some religious settlement, some reform of law, which the Long Parliament had assayed in vain, and his successful foreign policy. He pointed out to them that their first duties were the completion of these works, the planting of Ireland with English colonists, and the arrangement of the taxes, no longer as his arbitrary work, but as they ought to be, the self-imposed duties of the national representation. But, though this speech was admired at the time, it did not produce the effect which Cromwell desired. As he had probably himself feared, the freedom of election had introduced men of such various parties, that strong united action seemed impossible. Instead of producing that settlement which he wanted, instead of governing and legislating in accordance with the Instrument of Government, which was the existing Constitution, the various parties at once set to work discussing what ought to be the Constitution, especially questioning the advantage of a government "by Parliament and a single person." Now this, as we have seen, Cromwell regarded as a fundamental necessity. He therefore summoned the Parliament before him, explained to them the difference between "fundamentals which they might not touch and accidentals which they might," pointed out that in appearing to the summons issued by his authority they had acknowledged that authority, and demanded from each member a written recognition of the constitution of government by Parliament and a single person. A certain number refused the recognition, and retired sulkily to their counties. About three-fourths continued their work, but still wasted their time upon unessential alterations in the Constitution, leaving the Government and all reforms untouched. During the five months of their session they never once, as Cromwell complained, had any communication at all with him, and were in fact hindering rather than helping that general pacification and settlement of England which was his object. Parliament does Though constantly fretting under this treatment of theirs, he determined to allow the five months appointed by the Instrument to elapse, but, to the astonishment of the House, he construed the five months as lunar months, consisting of

Cromwell turns out his opponents.

nothing, and

is dissolved.

Jan. 22.

1655]

THE MAJOR-GENERALS

707

four weeks each, and the very moment the twenty weeks had elapsed he dissolved them.

Anabaptists.

It was indeed necessary that they should be got rid of. The constant uncertainty in which they kept the nation afforded opportunity for plots on both sides. Both Royalists and Anabaptists began to raise their heads, while the army of Scotland grew discontented because no measures were taken to pay it with regularity. Not only did the extreme parties grow bitterer in their hatred to Cromwell, they began to make common cause, and the danger was becoming really threatening. The beginning of 1655 was Danger from marked by the discovery or outbreak of these plots. plots. Major Wildman was apprehended in the act of dictating a treasonable declaration; and it became necessary to place in confinement the chiefs of the Anabaptists, such as Harrison and Lord Grey of Groby. In March the Royalist movement broke out in Salisbury, where Colonel Penrudduck and Sir Joseph Wagstaff suddenly rose in arms during the assizes, seized the judges, and were with difficulty kept from hanging them. They then proclaimed King Charles, and withdrew towards Cornwall. Near Royalists. South Molton, the Parliamentary troops came up with them, and entirely defeated their followers. Several of the leaders, including Penrudduck and Grove, were beheaded, while others, found guilty of high treason and horsestealing, were shipped to the Barbadoes, a very favourite punishment of Cromwell's. Charles and Hyde, who was acting as his minister, were bitterly disappointed at the failure of the movement; and upon discovering that their plan had been disclosed by a man of the name of Manning, Charles stretched his rights as de jure King living in a foreign land so far as to have him shot in the dominions of the Duke of Neuburg, after examination before his Council.

Cromwell's

The constant recurrence and wide ramification of these plots rendered vigorous measures necessary. Cromwell, without a Parliament, with no force that he could thoroughly trust except the army, found himself compelled to divide England into ten, and subsequently twelve districts, over which he set major-generals, with power little short of absolute, subordinate only to the major-generals. Protector and his Council. These major-generals had the militia of their districts in their hands, and were particularly employed in assisting the Triers and Expurgators in supplying the Church with godly ministers. Regarding the constant plots of the Royalists as the chief causes of the additional expenses entailed upon the Government,

PER. MON.