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general was further to keep a sharp eye upon scandalous ministers, and to see that no disaffected person should take any share in the education of youth.

All this, however, was the least material part of the new policy. The case for the change rested on the danger of more daring plots and more important risings, the inadequateness of local justices and parish constables, the need of the central government for hands and eyes of its own, finally on the shadows of division in the army. There were those in the late parliament who thought the peril inconsiderable, but Thurloe tells us that "his Highness saw a necessity of raising more force, and in every county, unless he would give up his cause to the enemy." This involved a new standing militia for all the counties of England, and that again involved a new money charge. What so just as to put the charge upon those whose disaffection was the cause of it?" Such a plan needed no more than the "decimation" of those against whom, after personal inquisition made, they chose to set the mark of delinquency or disaffection. From such persons they were instructed to exact one-tenth of their annual income. For these exactions there was no pretence of law; nor could they be brought into the courts, the only appeal being to the Protector in Council. The parliament had been dissolved for meddling with the Instrument of Government. Yet all this was contrary to the Instrument. The scheme took some time to complete, but by the last three months of 1655 it was in full operation.

Two other remarkable measures of repression belong to this stern epoch. An edict was passed for securing the peace of the Commonwealth (November 1655), ordering that no ejected clergyman should be kept in any gentleman's house as chaplain or tutor, or teach in a school, or baptize, or celebrate marriages, or use the Prayer Book. That

this was a superfluity of rigour is shown by the fact that it was never executed. It is probable that other measures of the time went equally beyond the real necessities of the crisis, for experience shows that nothing is ever so certain to be overdone as the policy of military repression against civil disaffection. The second measure was still more significant of the extent to which despotic reaction was going in the methods of the government. Orders were issued that no person whatever do presume to publish in print any matter of public news or intelligence without leave of the Secretary of State. The result of this was to reduce the newspaper press in the capital of the country to a single journal coming out twice a week under two different names. Milton was still Latin Secretary, and it was only eleven years since the appearance of his immortal plea for unlicensed printing.

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Our ministers are bad," one of the majorgenerals reports in 1655, "our magistrates idle, and the people all asleep." The new authorities set resolutely to work. They appointed Commissioners to assess the decimation of delinquents, not however without constant reference to the Protector and Council for directions how individuals were to be dealt with. The business of taxing the cavaliers in this high manner was "of wonderful acceptation to all the parliament party, and men of all opinions joined heartily therein." That men of one opinion should heartily rejoice at the compulsory exaction of rates and taxes from men of another opinion, is in accord with human nature: not that the activity of the major-generals prevented the imposition of a general property-tax in 1656. The cavaliers submitted with little ado. Wider irritation was created by stringent interference with ale-houses, bearbaiting, and cock-fighting. Lord Exeter came to ask Whalley whether he would allow the Lady

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Grantham cup to be run for at Lincoln, for if so, he would start a horse. "I assured him," reports Whalley to the Protector, "that it was not your Highness' intention in the suppressing of horseraces, to abridge gentlemen of that sport, but to prevent the great confluences of irreconcilable enemies " ; and Exeter had his race. Profane and idle gentry whose lives were a shame to a Christian Commonwealth were hunted out, and the government were adjured to banish them. "We have imprisoned here," writes the choleric major-general in Shropshire, "divers lewd fellows, some for having a hand in the plot, others of dissolute life, as persons dangerous to the peace of the nation: amongst others those papists who went a-hunting when they were sent for by Major Waring; they are desperate persons, and divers of them fit to grind sugar-cane or plant tobacco, and if some of them were sent into the Indies, it would do much good." One personage when reprimanded warned the majorgeneral that if he were sent to prison it would cause the godly to pour forth prayers and tears before the Lord. The officer staunchly replied that thousands of men in tears would never disquiet him, if he knew that he was doing his duty in the way of Providence.

The only defence of reason of state is success, and here the result soon proved to be not success but failure. While so many individuals and orders were exasperated, no great class of society was reconciled. Rigid order was kept, plotters were cowed, money was squeezed, but the keenest discontent was quickened in all those various organised bodies of men with lively minds and energetic interests, by whom in the long run effective public opinion in every community is generated. Oliver must soon have seen that his change of system would inevitably cut up his policy of healing and conciliation by its roots.

CHAPTER IV

THE REACTION

WANT of money has ever been the wholesome check on kings, on parliaments, on cabinets, and now in his turn it pinched the Protector. In spite of the decimation screw, the militia often went short of their pay, and suffered both trouble and jeers in consequence. Apart from the cost of domestic administration, Cromwell had embarked, as we shall see, on a course of intervention abroad; and he was soon in the same straits as those against which Strafford had long ago warned his master, as the sure result of a foreign policy to be paid for by discontented subjects. In June 1656, the Protector held a conference with his Council and some of the principal officers of the army. There were those who advised him to raise money on his own direct authority by forced loans or general taxation. There is reason to suppose that Cromwell himself leaned this way, for before long he chid the officers for urging the other course. The decision, however,

was taken to call a new parliament.

The election that went forward during the summer of 1656 had all the rough animation of the age, and well deserves consideration. Thurloe writes to Henry Cromwell that there is the greatest striving to get into parliament that ever was known; every faction is bestirring itself with all its might; and all sorts of discontented people are incessant in their endeavours. The major-generals on their side

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were active in electioneering arts, and their firmly expressed resignation to the will of over-ruling Providence did not hinder the most alert wirepulling. They pressed candidates of the right colour, and gave broad hints as to any who were not sober and suitable to the present work. Every single major-general was himself a candidate and was elected. At Dover the rabble were strong for Cony, who had fought the case of the customs dues, and the major-general thought him likely to be elected unless he could be judiciously "secluded." At Preston, once the scene of perhaps the most critical of all Cromwell's victories, the major-general expected much thwarting, through the peevishness of friends and the disaffection of enemies. In Norwich an opposition preacher of great popularity was forbidden to go into the pulpit. A sharp eye was kept upon all printed matter finding its way through the post. Whalley reports that the heart is sound in what he calls the mediterranean part of the nation; people know that money will be wanted by the government, but they will not grudge it as the price of a settlement. At the same time he is unhappy lest Colonel Hutchinson or Sir Arthur Haselrig should get in, just as his superiors dreaded the return of Serjeant Bradshaw and Sir Henry Vane. Desborough is uneasy about the west, but he makes it his business to strengthen the hands of the honest sober people, leaving the issue to the wise Disposer.

Norfolk was one of the most alarming cases. "If other counties should do as this," says the major-general, "it would be a sufficient alarum to stand upon our guard, the spirit of the people being most strangely heightened and moulded into a very great aptness to take the first hint for an insurrection, and the county especially so disposed may most probably begin the scene. He suggests that preparations for calling out the militia would be