forth be admitted to the House till they had subscribed a paper recording their adherence to the main principles he had mentioned. In this way about a hundred members, being a fourth of the whole number, were excluded.

It was all of no use. The Parliament had been purged of those, the most strenuous in their republicanism, who declined to sign the required declaration. Those who remained withheld the supplies, whilst they discussed the constitution, oppressed heretics, and criticised the action of the Government. This was not what Cromwell wanted, nor what he had the patience to stand. To upset in 'fundamentals' the system to which the Parliament owed its own existence was, on the part of Parliament, a kind of parricide.' He summoned them to meet him once more (January 1655), told them that whilst they had been cavilling, and increasing popular dissension, the Cavalier party was preparing to plunge the country again into bloodshed; that the Levellers,' looking to the unsettlement which Parliament was endeavouring to bring about, were intriguing with the Cavaliers; that members had been stirring up disaffection in the city, and that attempts were being made to debauch the army. A tone of deep disappointment runs through the whole speech. He had met his Parliament' with 'joy the first time; with some regret the second; but now he speaks with most regret of all.' Necessity now calls for supplies. These necessities were not of his nor of men's creation, and the people, therefore, will not be so angry but 'they will prefer their safety to their passions and their real security to forms.' Accordingly, acting under a sense of his duty to God and the people of the three nations,' he dismissed them. I think it my duty to tell you,' he concluded, that it is not for the profit of these nations, nor for the common and public good, for you to continue here any longer, and I declare unto you that I do dissolve this 'Parliament.'

Then came the rule of the Major-Generals. From January 1655 to September 1656 the Protector governed without any Parliament, and raised the requisite supplies mainly out of taxes imposed by arbitrary authority on Royalists and malignants. Taxation by ordinance, and the imprisonment of those who ventured to question its legality before the courts of law, and even of their counsel, were justified by the Protector with perfect frankness, on the ground of necessity. What was the use of citing Magna Charta, or the ancient laws and liberties of

Englishmen ? The nation might have its throat cut before he could get together a Parliament at all; and if he got it, then it would probably legislate against Providence, taking thought of events which might happen, instead of leaving them to the divine guidance. So reasoned the Protector. He was where he was, according to his own. showing, just as much by right divine as any Stuart of them all. To this had come the assertors of English liberties, the successors of the Hampdens and the Pyms, the vindicators of a parliamentary constitution.

The system of the Major-Generals, says Mr. Frederic Harrison, was nothing more or less than a war measure; it was the military occupation of the country after civil war and still in immediate danger of insurrection. Cromwell's first duty was to maintain order, and no one ever did it better. Apart from its dictatorial character the Protector's government was efficient, just, and wise, and it was the high distinction of his Court that for once it exacted morality and purity 'from men as from women.' All this is true, but what progress was being made all this time towards permanent reform? If it is true that the country enjoyed halcyon days' under the benevolent, though arbitrary, rule of the Protector, is it not clear that this temporary calm, due to artificial causes, must necessarily be followed by the violent storm of reaction? Even in the department of morals, Englishmen resented being compelled to virtue by Major-Generals, however much their better feelings may have led them to admire the most immaculate Court in Christendom. The Barebones Parliament of Puritan notables was a failure, the first Parliament of the Protectorate was a failure, and now the system of the Major-Generals was the greatest failure of all, if indeed success is to be measured by the amount of progress made towards those objects Cromwell always had in view, the settlement of religion and of orderly constitutional government in England.

Once more Cromwell assembled a Parliament. It is not easy to say whether at this time he contemplated a close return to the old constitutional system put an end to by civil wars. The Instrument of Government was still in force the system of a Single Person and a Parliament. Every effort was made by the Major-Generals and Cromwell's Council to secure that the composition of the new House of Commons should be as favourable as possible to the maintenance of Cromwellian Puritan rule. The real reason for calling a Parliament was not, as it seldom has been, the

desire of the governing authority for the time being to meet the representatives of the people, but the urgent and pressing need of 'supplies.' Accordingly, the Protector's speech said little as to establishing a settled constitutional régime, but much as to the imminent dangers to the State, to guard against which immediate measures, necessitating heavy expenditure, must be taken. Spain was the great enemy of England and of Protestantism. It was evident to all men who believed in the Scriptures that in the Epistle to the Thessalonians and in the Revelation it was Spain that was described as Papal and Antichristian. Nevertheless, the man Charles Stuart was leaning on the support of Spain. English Papists and Cavaliers, and now even Levellers, were joining them. The national existence was in danger, and was only to be met by reformation of manners and by taking security,' for which money was required. Safety consisted in vigorous prosecution of the war with Spain, but whence were the means for it to come?' This was the burden of Cromwell's speech, interspersed with much good advice and wise suggestions. Puritans should be tolerant towards each other's differences. The laws were in some respects unsatisfactory and barbarous, as, for instance, in often letting a murderer escape punishment, and in hanging a man for the theft of 6s. 8d. To see men lose their lives for petty matters: this is a thing God will reckon for.' The Major-Generals had done good work in discountenancing vice, in settling religion, and in preserving the peace of the nation; and unless this work of reformation continued, other precautions would be of little avail. The mind is the man. If that be kept pure, a man signifies somewhat; if not, I would very fain see what difference there is betwixt him and a 'beast. He hath only some activity to do some more mischief.' But it was with supplies that Parliament could help. The royal estates, the Church lands, the property of the malignants, in all a great treasure, was now exhausted, and money must be had. This was no time, Cromwell told Parliament, for them to discuss unnecessary and unprofitable things. He was Supreme Magistrate by the voice of the people, and he and his Parliament must work together for the common good. He wound up a speech which was 'partly a reasoned justification of his government, partly a 'magnificent Puritan sermon,'* by reading the eighty-fifth Psalm.

Frederic Harrison.

Cromwell, however, was the last man in England to place implicit confidence in sermons, even in his own; and when the newly elected representatives withdrew to their house, nearly a fourth of their number found themselves excluded for not having obtained the approbation of the Council of State. Even so, winnowed and sifted as it had been, the assembly showed itself full of that spirit of corporate self' esteem without which any Parliament is a body devoid of 'soul.' * Neither preaching nor packing availed to keep Parliament to the business which the Protector had summoned it to perform. Religious disputes, the display of much intolerance and narrow bigotry, the consideration of the constitution, wasted, in Cromwell's opinion, time that had been far better spent in voting supplies. But these were the subjects that occupied the minds of Englishmen. Vain to suppose that if an English Parliament met at all it would not concern itself with such topics as these.

In spite of everything that had happened in the past, and of the Protector's former determination to permit no discussion of the fundamentals' of the constitution, the proposal in February 1657 to declare the Protector to be King, and to establish two Houses of Parliament, found much favour in and out of the House of Commons. But the army was strongly opposed to the change, and to the wishes -almost the threats-of the principal officers of the army was due the final determination of Cromwell to refuse the crown. He became under the revised constitution a monarch in all but name, governing according to the old fashion with the assistance of two Houses; and the inauguration of the new system, when in June 1657 Oliver in Westminster Hall was installed Protector, seated on the royal coronation stone, was to all intents and purposes the coronation of a king. Surely now at last it seemed that England was really nearing the end of a generation of troubles. The dissension between King and Parliament had produced civil war, a condition of things which was put an end to by military rule. Absolutism had now given place to a constitutional system as near almost as might be to the old one; and if Sovereign and Parliament were ever to work together again in England, surely men might hope that the statesmanship of Cromwell would bring it about.

It was not to be. In January 1658 Cromwell addressed

John Morley, p. 420.

My Lords and Gentlemen of the two Houses of Parlia'ment,' telling them that the well-being,' nay, 'the being, of the nation' was at stake, and that they must not suppose they were safe merely because they were environed by a great ditch from all the world beside. Truly you will not be able to keep your ditch, nor your shipping, unless you turn your ships and shipping into troops of horse and 'companies of foot, and fight to defend yourselves on terra firma! Even at this time of imminent danger from our foreign foes there were some Englishmen at home ready to revive domestic discords and civil war. It would be fortunate were the nation more content with rule' than it was, 'because even misrule is better than no rule; and an 'ill-government, a bad government, is better than none.' The nation had to thank the army for six years of peace, and the army must be paid. He had sworn to govern in accordance with the new constitution. The place he held he had not sought. I speak it before God, angels, and 'men, I did not; you sought me for it.' And this oath to the Commonwealth he would maintain. Alas! only ten days later Oliver had become convinced that only unsettlement could be expected from the new Parliament. Attempts were being made, he said, to stir up the people and to corrupt the army, and men who should know better were actually playing the game of the King of Scots. Since 'settlement of the nation' is not the object, I think it high time to put an end to your sitting. And I do dissolve this Parliament! And let God judge between you and me!' Thus with all three of Cromwell's Parliaments the result was the same-complete failure. It is clear that, unless the ruler for the time being, whether called King or Protector, could find some modus vivendi with a Parliament, the nation could never realise the longed-for settlement. Mr. Morley is highly appreciative of the noble qualities of the great Protector: He had the instinct of government-a very 'different thing from either a taste for the abstract ideas of 'politics or the passion for liberty.' But he did not belong to the same type as a Frederick the Great or a Bismarck, nor hold that might was the token of right. He was one of that nobler and rarer type of governing men who see the golden side, who count faith, pity, hope, among the counsels of practical wisdom, and who for political power 'must ever seek a moral base.' Mr. Morley, however, feels, and in this he carries us with him, that many of Cromwell's admirers have set up for him a kind of claim hardly borne