followed up the blow. "My lord commissioner Whitelocke," he exclaimed, “hath put us upon the right point. It is, indeed, my meaning that we should consider whether a republic, or a mixed monarchical government, will be best to be settled; and," he added, with that careless air which so often veiled the profoundest workings of ambition in him, " if anything monarchical, then in whom that power shall be placed?"

The discussion thus fairly launched, the various speakers embarked in it without further hesitation. Sir Thomas Widdrington (who was in so far honestly disposed to monarchy, that he had resigned the commission of the great seal upon the passing of that memorable vote* which should have brought these ingenious gentlemen debaters within the penalties of treason) at once, with much candour a great deal too much for Cromwell thus tendered his opinion: "I think a mixed monarchical government will be most suitable to the laws and people of the nation; and if any thing monarchical, I suppose we shall hold it most just to place that power in one of the sons of the late king." Cromwell betraying some uneasiness at this, his friend colonel Fleetwood, who afterwards married the widow of Ireton, and was a man of reasonable but not very strong inclinations to a republic, advanced to his relief, and again generalised the discussion after this vague fashion: "I think that the question, whether an absolute republic, or a mixed monarchy, is best to be settled in this nation, will not be very easy to be determined." Upon this, the lord chief justice, Oliver Saint John, offered a remark of much general force, and no particular application, which was all the better for his great cousin and confidant Cromwell: "It will be found," he said, “that the government of this nation, without some thing of monarchical power, will be very difficult to be so settled as not to shake the foundation of our laws,

"THAT THE Office of KING IN THIS NATION, OR TO HAVE THE POWER IN A SINGLE PERSON, IS UNNECESSARY, BURTHENSOME, AND DANGEROUS TO THE LIBERTY, SAFETY, AND PUBLIC INTEREST OF THE PEOPLE."

and the liberties of the people." The speaker chimed in with this: "It will breed a strange confusion," he remarked, "to settle a government of this nation without something of monarchy." He had scarcely made the remark, however, when a thoroughly honest man, of short-sighted zeal, but most sincere purpose, turned round to St. John, and put this startling question: "I beseech you, my lord, why may not this, as well as other nations, be governed in the way of a republic ?" The lord commissioner Whitelocke made reply to it: "The laws of England are so interwoven with the power and practice of monarchy, that to settle a government without something of monarchy, would make so great an alteration in the proceedings of our laws, that you have scarce time to rectify, nor can we well foresee, the inconveniences which will arise thereby." Most shallow, learned, and lawyer-like reply!

The only other man who seems to have spoken with an appearance of honesty, rose after it had been delivered, and frankly observed that it was unintelligible to him. "I do not,” added colonel Whalley, "well understand matters of law; but it seems to me the best way, not to have any thing of monarchical power in the settlement of our government; and, if we should resolve upon any, whom have we to pitch upon? The king's eldest son hath been in arms against us, and his second son is likewise our enemy." If Whalley here intended, however (for his close relationship to Cromwell, and his subsequent crawling subservience to him, cannot fail to induce suspicion), merely to narrow the question of a kingly successor to some great man taken from the people—as it is clear that Cromwell throughout the meeting desired-Widdrington foiled the attempt by this earnest and honest proposition: "But the late king's third son, the duke of Gloucester, is still among us, and too young to have been in arms against us, or infected with the principles of our enemies." Whitelocke, upon this, as if to shift the question once more to some point of general disagreement, and so relieve the uneasiness of Crom

well, revived one of the old proposals.

"There may,"

he said, "be a day given for the king's eldest son, or for the duke of York, his brother, to come into the parliament; and, upon such terms as shall be thought fit and agreeable, both to our civil and spiritual liberties, a settlement may be made with them."

Cromwell, however, who had been restless and dissatisfied as these latter views were urged, here interposed, with a statement of some force and brevity and obviously designed to wind up the conference. "That' he said, in reference to Whitelocke's last remark, "will be a business of more than ordinary difficulty; but, really I think, if it may be done with safety and preservation of our rights, both as Englishmen and Christians, THAT A SETTLEMENT WITH SOMEWHAT OF

MONARCHICAL POWER IN IT WOULD BE VERY EFFEC

TUAL."

The memorialist concludes his account by saying, that "much other discourse was by divers gentlemen then present held upon other points, and too large to be here inserted. Generally, the soldiers were against any thing of monarchy, though every one of them was a monarch in his own regiment or company; the lawyers were generally for a mixt monarchical government, and many were for the duke of Gloucester to be made king; but Cromwell still put off that debate, and came off to some other point; and in conclusion, after a long debate, the company parted without coming to any result at all; only Cromwell discovered by this meeting the inclinations of the persons that spake, for which he fished, and made use of what he then discerned." But if words bear any meaning, he had also, while doing this, revealed his own inclinations. No man who attended that meeting could thereafter doubt that he was for a "settlement with somewhat of monarchical power in it." The guardians of the republic had not been idle meanwhile. On the 18th of the preceding month*,

* See Parl. Hist., vol. xx. p. 78.

after a long and severe struggle, the details of which have found a more appropriate place in another portion of this work *, a bill was passed to limit the duration of the parliament then sitting at Westminster, to the 3d of November, 1654. Numerous and close divisions attested the energy and excitement of both parties in the house at this memorable crisis. Each alternately triumphed. Cromwell professed to have achieved his desire by forcing on the house a defined period for its dissolution the statesmen had most assuredly achieved theirs in accompanying the act with a proviso, that, for a certain period at least, the new elections should not interfere with the right of the present members to retain their privileges and seats. This was made the bitterest charge against them afterward, and Cromwell relied upon it for the main justification of his subsequent disgraceful dissolution of them. But they were entitled, as events well proved, to have reasoned on the matter as they did. The first occasion for trusting the people having been lost, it became a duty of deep and deliberate caution how best to select or shape the second. The suspected intrigues of Cromwell and his officers - the half declared discontents which pervaded the great body of the army the birth of the venomous reptiles that had only started into power from the warmth of the bosoms against which they now traitorously turned these warned the founders and guardians of the commonwealth that, the first opportunity of entire faith in the people having been lost, the second had not yet arrived. Marten's simile here came again to their aid. When "Moses was found upon the river, and brought to Pharaoh's daughter, she took care that the mother might be found out, to whose care he might be committed to be nursed. . . . Their commonwealth was yet an infant, of a weak growth, and a very tender constitution; and, therefore, his opinion was, that nobody could be so fit to nurse it, as the mother who brought

it forth; and that they should not think of putting it in any other hands, until it had obtained more years and vigour." Arguing from this, they held, that to leave the cradle of the republic unwatched by some staunch and reliable friends, at a time when the sword flashed danger above it, and safety was not altogether discernible in the features or attitude of the great mass of the people, would be a danger to its life and growth little short of the treason that threatened it more openly. In all this Vane does not seem to have thoroughly concurred. He would now have acted in manly reparation of what he felt to have been the first error of the fathers of the commonwealth, and would have trusted - with a faith that was honourable to his high spirit and pure soul to the beneficial result of some general convention of the people or of the people's just representatives. Beyond a doubt he was overruled but whether wisely or not, in the present instance, admits of question, since every day that had passed since the Worcester victory had served to accumulate greater dangers and difficulties around the paths and policy of the statesmen. The bill they passed instead, was, at least, a generous and (if the expression is allowed) a fearless compromise. Reserving for the councils of the commonwealth, the wisdom and experience of the men who had framed them first, it threw at the same time into the hands of the people the power of sending into the house a large majority of their own. The lofty motives and services of its leading advocates should be a warrant for the justice of all else which they designed to accomplish by it. And in proof of these lofty motives, little is necessary to the readers of this work beyond a mention of their names. Besides Vane, there were Bradshaw, Marten, Harrington, Scot, Sidney, Haselrig, Neville, and Blake. On the opposite side were ranged Cromwell, all his military myrmidons, and a decided majority of the lawyers.

The next grand question taken up by the statesmen, struck at the root of Cromwell's power. This was a