General's sticking close to the House and sending some of the maddest of them into Scotland." 1 Cromwell's support condi tional. The county franchise settled. Cromwell's resolution to stand by Parliament was, however, conditional on its readiness to proceed with the Bill for the new representative which had been hitherto considered once a week. On March 30 the House agreed to establish in the counties a franchise of 2007. in proMarch 30. perty, either real or personal, in lieu of a complicated arrangement, supported by Vane, which took account of landed property only.2 On April 6, when discussion would in due course have been renewed, the Bill was entirely passed over. It was no merely ordinary delay based on the pressure of other business that was contemplated. "Our Parliament," we hear, considering the present state of affairs, which are such as require not only unanimity in counsels, but a necessity of reserving the management in those hands that have hitherto governed with such advantage-are resolved to waive for the present a new representative."3 It is possible that the par April 6. The Bill not called on. 66 Possibility it. liamentary leaders may at this point have thought of of dropping dropping the Bill altogether. If so, they resolved before many days had passed to transform rather than to destroy it. Terrified, we may imagine, at the outburst of fanaticism around them, men like Vane and Hazlerigg sought thus to maintain their own grasp on the helm rather than to give way to a Parliament chosen under the auspices of Harrison. April 7. A new To such a scheme the officers were resolved to offer the most determined resistance. To them the continuance in any shape of the existing Parliament meant the continuance of a body not merely politically incapable, but governed by corrupt motives and influenced by low intrigue. On the 7th, the day after that on which the Bill had army petition. 1 Newsletters, April,, Hist. Rev., July 1893, pp. 528, 529. 2 C.J. vii. 273. The franchise of 2007. was afterwards adopted by the Instrument of Government. Newsletter, April, Hist. Rev., July 1893, p. 529. 1653 A SUBTLE SCHEME 253 been passed over, a fresh army petition was presented, demanding that the House should proceed with the measure, first taking into consideration a definition of the qualifications excluding improper persons from the future Parliament.1 On the 13th the House so far complied with this request as to amend the qualifications intended originally to keep out Royalists, by adding a requirement that members should only be allowed to take their seats if they were 'such as are persons of known integrity, fearing God and not scandalous in their conversation.' 2 April 13. Qualifications agreed to. The vote of the 13th, although taken in obedience to the army, would in the end render an appeal to force almost The exclusion of Royalists cannot, un An appeal to force almost unavoidable. inevitable. der the circumstances, be severely criticised. The imposition of the new test, with its dangerous vagueness, threw supreme power into the hands of any man or body of men charged with its interpretation. That advantage the existing Parliament had no intention of foregoing. Vane's love of finesse as well as the strength of Cromwell's subsequent indignation, point to him as the author of the scheme now adopted, even though no direct evidence to that effect has come down to us." Parliament was to transmute the Bill before it into one for filling up vacancies, leaving the old members not merely to retain their seats but to decide on the qualifications of those newly elected, and there are some reasons for believing that it was intended that this system of recruiting was to be applied to each successive Parliament, so that there would never be a general election again. As soon as the Bill was passed Parliament would adjourn till November, thus rendering it impossible legally to repeal or modify the "Les officiers ne se voulans plus payer de remise, presenterent il y a quinze jours une nouvelle petition contenant leurs mesmes propositions et les qualitez qu'ilz pretendoient que debvoit avoir ce nouveau representatif." Bordeaux to Brienne, A1, Arch. des Aff. Étrangères, lxii. fol. 117. 2 C.J. vii. 277. May I Except, at least, that we know the plan of partial elections to have been in favour with Vane. Act. In the meanwhile the Government would be administered by the Council of State in which, though Cromwell and the officers had a majority as regarded the war, the Parliamentarians had a majority as regarded domestic affairs.1 1 Professor Masson (Life of Milton, iv. 409, note 1) has set forth the case for holding that Parliament intended to recruit, not to dissolve, itself. He also holds that its Bill provided that the elections on new writs for the residue of the seats should be under the supervision of a committee.' If he means of a committee of the whole House, consisting of the old members only, I think he has hit on the most probable explanation of the means by which the new members were to be sifted. A committee in the ordinary sense was not trusted with the trial of election petitions before the Grenville Act in the 18th century, and, in default of positive evidence, it cannot be admitted in the present case. The rest of his contention has received additional strength since his work was published. In the newsletters printed in the Hist. Rev., July 1893, we have the statement, on April 29, that the Act was for calling a new Parliament, or rather recruiting the old '; and another-undated-adds, on Wednesday morning the House made a delusory adjournment and a new representative on the 3rd of November next.' Hyde, who saw these letters, and probably others as well, writes that 'the members had no mind to quit their benches, and were preparing a Bill to increase their numbers, and then resolved to adjourn till November, and in the meantime to leave the government in the Council of State.' Hyde to Rochester, May, Clarendon MSS. ii. No. 1,141. That Parliament intended to perpetuate itself is distinctly asserted in the manifesto of Cromwell and his officers, published on April 23 (Several Proceedings E, 211, 24), where it is said that the opposition to the people of God and His spirit acting in them grew so prevalent that those persons of honour and integrity amongst them who had eminently appeared for God and the public good... were rendered of no farther use in Parliament than by meeting with a corrupt party to give them countenance to carry on their ends, and for effecting the desires they had of perpetuating themselves in the supreme government, . . . and when they saw themselves necessitated to take that Bill into consideration, they resolved to make use of it to recruit the House with persons of the same spirit and temper.' The point of the threatened adjournment is not mentioned here, but in a second manifesto issued on May 3 (Another Declaration, E, 693, 17) we are told that the House, on the day of the dissolution, intended ‘to pass the Act for a new Parliament to be called in November next; and if themselves having passed it had that day then adjourned, as probably they would have done 6 1653 Cromwell dissatis AN ATTACK ON CROMWELL 255 That Cromwell when he came to know of this scheme should have been deeply dissatisfied was only to be expected. Even the qualifications themselves displeased him, now that he knew by whom they were to be interpreted. They would, as he afterwards explained, let in Presbyterians and neutrals who had deserted the cause of God.1 On the 15th,2 he reappeared in the House after an absence of at least a month,3 to plead earnestly for the substitution of a general election in place of a fied. April 15. He returns to Par liament. His resig nation demanded. mere scheme for the filling up of vacancies. It is high time, replied one of the leaders-possibly Vane or Marten —to his demand for a new Parliament, to choose a new General. Angry words were interchanged, and order was only restored by the intervention of the House. Yet, in spite of the line now taken by Cromwell, he had become such an object of suspicion in the eyes of the more violent had they not been dissolved, and by that means their design frustrated, the whole nation would have been in a sad condition.' This is supplemented by a statement in an account of the dissolution in Several Proceedings, E, 211, 20, to the effect that these present members were to sit and to be made up by others chosen, and by themselves approved of.' Bordeaux' testimony may be accepted as that of an independent witness. Parliament, he says, 'taschoit de s'asseurer de la faveur du peuple de Londres, et ne songeoit qu'aux moyens de continuer son autorité, ordonnant une nouvelle convocation avec telles conditions qu'ilz pourroyent se fermer, et que les officiers d'armée n'y auroient point de part.' Bordeaux April 21 to Brienne, Arch. des Aff. Étrangères, lxii. fol. 117. My own May 1 suggestion that it was intended to recruit each Parliament in perpetuity is founded on Cromwell's statement (Carlyle, Speech III.) that the plan was 'that when one Parliament had left its seat another was to sit down immediately in the room thereof, without any caution to avoid what was the real danger, the perpetuating of the same Parliament.' Carlyle suggests that these latter words should be the same men in Parliaments.' Unless Cromwell wanted a self-denying Act like that passed in the French Constituent Assembly, which there is no reason to suppose, his objection must have been to a system of recruiting in perpetuity. 1 Carlyle, Speech I. 2 Clarke Newsletter, April 16 [?], Hist. Rev., July 1893, p. 528. officers, that even Harrison backed the proposal to supersede him. Cromwell taking his critics at their word offered his resignation. No officer was found bold enough to accept the succession, and Cromwell remained at the head of the force which he alone could wield.' His offer to resign rejected. Cromwell had now to choose between Vane's scheme of recruiting the existing Parliament, and Harrison's scheme of erecting an assembly of pious and virtuous men.2 Yet he could not bring himself as yet to make a definite choice. He rather hoped to find a com Cromwell supports a compromise. "Per pensare a tutto e provedere al possibile seguono applicate e lunghe riduzzioni del Parlamento, in cui si trovano ben sovente discrepanti pareri per lo più sopra il progetto della dissoluzione di esso, per il che ultimamente accadde grande contestazione di parole tra il General Cromuel et un principale Parlamentario, perche promossasi da quello alcuna cosa sopra la rinovazione del medesimo Parlamento fu da questo altamente risposto che non era tempo più proprio alla mutazione di Generale dell' armi che il presente, onde tra loro furono repplicate parole rigorose et ardite, alle quali fu posto fine dal maggior numero de' radunati; onde resta tuttavia l'apparenza dell' amarezza tra il General Cromuel et il Parlamentario tenente Maggior Harrison, che sottomano et anco alla scoperta tende a pregiudiciarli nel comando dell' armi, ma li sarà sempre difficile l' avanzar passi contro di lui nell' auttorità che possiede e nell' accortezza che maneggia, persuaso della quale rissolse egli ultimamente di presentare la sua commissione e consegnarla nelle mani di che più havesse aggradito riceverla, e fosse dal Parlamento ordinato; onde non havendo alcuno osato a tanta intrapresa rimane egli, può dirsi, maggiormente stabilito, ma il di lui animo intimamente esacerbato." Pauluzzi to Morosini, April 17, Letter Book R.O. [In the original preface to volume ii. of this history Mr. Gardiner added the following comment on Pauluzzi's story: Since the present volume was printed off I have noticed that Bernardi, the Duke of Savoy's resident in England, in a despatch of May 5, 1653, published by Signor Prayer (Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, xvi.) states that, on the morning of dissolution of the Long Parliament, Cromwell entered the House, "mentre stavasi per metter a voto la revocatione della patente di detto Generalissimo e poi di agiornare il Parlamento sino a S. Michele." The remainder of Bernardi's story does not agree in details with that told by eye-witnesses, and he cannot be absolutely depended upon here. Nevertheless, his words are sufficiently in accordance with what I have stated at pages 255 and 256 to be worth noting.'] 2 See p. 236. April 25 |