IV. 1657. BOOK ice; and it now became his plan, to plunge into the difficulties that stood in his path, without fear, secure that the very circumstance of his apparent remoteness from the harbour of his repose, would supply new strength to his nerves, and enable him to reach it. It is earn estly disap. the republicans, and op posed by Lambert. The great enemies of the project were the determined republicans. From the day that Charles the First had fled from Oxford, and thrown himself upon the protection of the Scottish army, they had entered into a combination, the jet of which was, that there should be no more a king in England. Cromwel and Ireton were for some time the soul of this combination. Bradshaw, and Vane, and Marten, and Harrison, and Haselrig, and a multitude of others, men of the highest character, were among its distinguished and inflexible adherents. They had placed as a motto, in the room of the statue of Charles the First, pulled down at the Royal Exchange, Exit Tyrannus, Ultimus Regum. These men became tenfold more the adversaries of Cromwel under the new regimen. The next party that was most hostile to the the officers proposition of sir Christopher Pack, was that of of the army. the officers of the army. Lambert was at the head of this party. He had for some time discovered a growing alienation to the administration of Cromwel. He was thought to have a more Thurloe, Vol. VI, p. 74, 93. CHA P. XXII. 1657. rough. advantageous claim than any other man to succeed him in the protectorate. He was of course averse to the title of king, which drew along with it, by almost inevitable consequence, the idea of hereditary succession. The majority of the great Desboofficers of the army had divided themselves against Cromwel in the question of the major-generals. The protector had given them up, by way of courting favour with the other great interests in the nation. But several of the leading officers of the The majorarmy, Fleetwood and Desborough among the rest, had accepted the appointment of major-generals. They felt that, while they had incurred abundant odium with the nation at large, they had discharged, to the best of their judgments, a firm and unshrinking duty to their own party and to the government. They therefore conceived a warm and lively indignation against the protector, for having disbanded them in the way in which they had been disbanded. generals. their de These persons appear to have been strenuous Violence of in their opposition, from the first introduction of meanour. the proposal of sir Christopher Pack. We are told that, with a sort of burst of disapprobation, they forced the proposer from the place where he stood near the speaker, offering his measure to the consideration of the members, and bore him down to the bar of the house %. Ludlow, p. 584. BOOK This circumstance gives us a singular view of the manner in which the measures of government were conducted on the present occasion. It cancouncil not not be doubted, that the proposal had been con 1657. Privy advised with. certed between Cromwel and his most confidential advisers. Yet the persons most forward in their opposition, including Fleetwood, his son-in-law, and Strickland, the late ambassador at the Hague, were members of his little council of sixteen persons. In reality the council had now for some time been accustomed to sit only once or twice a week. There were certain measures which, according to form, were regularly transacted at this board. But it is plain, on this and other occasions, that some of the most important consultations of government were not held in the councilchamber. VASSED, ARTICLE BY ARTICLE.-TITLE OF KING strance de Remon bated, article by arti cle. THE first idea of Lambert and his coadjutors CHAP. seems to have been, to cast out this proposition of XXIII. Pack, at the instant of its announcement. Lord 1657. Broghil however and chief justice Glyn opposed this proceeding. They observed that, by entertaining the proposition, the house would by no means pledge itself to adopt the whole; and they strenuously recommended, that it should be examined by parts, and so much only adopted as should on debate be found to express the sense of the assembly a. In fact, some settlement of the constitution of government could no longer be de a Journals, Feb. 24. Whitlocke, May 1. Ludlow, ubi supra. IV. 1657. BOOK ferred. It must not be admitted that the fundamentals of the system should rest on the recommendation of the council of officers; but something definite, clear and precise must be determined on by parliament, and receive the express sanction of its authority. To be considered by the house committee. On the third day it was resolved, that the bill submitted to their judgment, should not be reand not in ferred to a committee of the whole house, but examined in its different members, the speaker in the chair. And, according to the mode of the times, a fast was previously to be observed by the legislature, to seek assistance from heaven on the occasion b Address of one hundred offi cers. Reproachful answer of Cromwel. It was at this time that the party of Lambert made a strenuous effort to divert Cromwel from the career on which he was entering. On the twentyseventh of February, the very day that the house had appointed for a fast, one hundred officers waited on the protector, to intreat him that he would not listen to the idea of administering the executive government under the proposed new title, suggesting that it would not be pleasing to the army, nor to the godly and pious members of the community, that it would be hazardous to his own person, and dangerous to the nation, and was calculated in the result to make way for the restoration of the exiled family c. Cromwel is said immediately to have answered Journals, Feb. 25. Burton's Diary, Vol. I, p. 382. |