support, as it was known that no man in England had stronger common-sense, or was less likely to be carried away by such dreamers. In the Parliament itself there was a strong minority which thought it at least necessary, before an institution was abolished, to provide a substitute for it. These men, on December 11, got up early in the morning, and, before their opponents knew what they were about, declared Parliament to be dissolved, and placed supreme authority in the hands of Cromwell. 12. The Protectorate, and the Instrument of Government. 1653.—On December 16 a constitutional document, known as The Instrument of Government, was drawn up by Cromwell's leading supporters, and accepted by himself. Cromwell was to be styled Lord Protector, a title equivalent to that of Regent, of which the last instance had been that of the Protector Somerset (see p. 412). The Protector was to enter, to some extent, upon the duties which had formerly devolved on the king. There was to be a Parliament consisting of a single House, which was to meet once in three years, from which all who had taken the king's part were excluded, as they also were from voting at elections. The constituencies were to be almost identical with the reformed ones established by Vane's Reform Bill (see p. 566). The Protector was to appoint the executive officials, and to have a fixed revenue sufficient to pay the army and navy and the ordinary expenses of Government; but if he wanted more for extraordinary purposes he could only obtain it by means of a Parliamentary grant. New laws were to be made by Parliament alone, the Protector having no veto upon them, though he was to have an opportunity of criticising them, if he wished to urge Parliament to change its purpose. The main lines of the constitution were, however, laid down in the Instrument itself, and Parliament had no power given it to make laws contrary to the Instrument. In the executive government the Protector was restrained, not by Parliament, but by a Council of State, the members of which he could not dismiss as the king had dismissed his Privy Councillors. The first members were nominated in the Instrument, and were appointed for life; but when vacancies occurred, Parliament was to give in six names, of which the Council was to select two, leaving to the Protector only the final choice of one out of two. Without the consent of this entirely independent Council, the Protector could take no step of importance. 13. Character of the Instrument of Government. -The Instrument of Government allowed less Parliamentary control than had been given to the Long Parliament after the passing of the Tri 1653-1654 A CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTORATE 569 ennial Act and the Tonnage and Poundage Act (see pp. 530, 531): as, though Parliament could now pass laws without any check corresponding to the necessity of submitting them to the royal assent, it could not pass laws on the constitutional points which the Instrument of Government professed to have settled for ever. Neither except when there was an extraordinary demand for money-could it stop the supplies, so as to bring the executive under its power. It was, rather, the intention of the framers of the Instrument to prevent that Parliamentary absolutism which had proved so hurtful in the later years of the Long Parliament. On the other hand, they gave to the Council of State a real control over the Protector; and it is this which shows that they were intent on averting absolutism in the Protector, as well as absolutism in Parliament, though the means taken by them to effect their end was different from anything adopted by the nation in later years. 14. Oliver's Government. 1653 1654.-Before meeting Parliament, Oliver had some months in which he could show the quality of the new Government. On April 5, 1654, he brought the war with the Dutch to a close, and subsequently concluded treaties with other European powers. On July 10 he had Dom Pantaleon Sa, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, beheaded for a murder. He had more than enough domestic difficulties to contend with. The Fifth-Monarchy men, and other religious enthusiasts, attacked him for treachery to republicanism, whilst Charles II. offered rewards to his followers for the murder of the usurper. Some of the republicans were imprisoned, and Gerard and Vowel, who tried to murder Oliver, were executed. In the meanwhile, the Protector and Council moved forward in the path of conservative reform. The Instrument allowed them to issue ordinances, which would be valid till Parliament could examine them; and, amongst others which he sent forth, was one to reform the Court of Chancery, and another to establish a Commission of Triers, to reject all ministers presented to livings, if it considered them to be unfit, and another Commission of Ejectors, to turn out those who, being in possession, were deemed unworthy. Oliver would have nothing to say to the Voluntary system. Tithes were to be retained, and religious worship was to be established; but there was to be no inquiry whether the ministers were Presbyterians, Independents, or anything else, provided they were Puritans. There was to be complete toleration of other Puritan congregations not belonging to the established churches; whilst the Episcopalians, though not legally tolerated, were as yet frequently allowed to meet privately without notice being taken of them. Other ordinances decreed a complete Union with Scotland and Ireland, both countries being ordered to return members to the Parliament at Westminster. As far as the real Irish were concerned, this Union was entirely illusory, as all Roman Catholics were excluded from the franchise. 15. The First Protectorate Parliament. 1654—1655.—On September 3, 1654, the First Protectorate Parliament met. Its first act was to question the authority of private persons to frame a constitution for the State, and it then proceeded to draw up a new constitution, altering the balance in favour of Parliament, and expressly declaring that the constitution was liable to revision whenever the Protector and Parliament agreed to change it. Oliver and the Parliament thus found themselves at issue on a point on which compromise was impossible. Parliament, as representing the nation, claimed the right of drawing up the constitution under which the nation was to live. Oliver claimed the right of fixing limits on Parliamentary absolutism; for though, in the suggested constitution, Parliament only proposed to make change possible with the consent of the Protector, it had taken care to make the Council of State responsible to Parliament, thereby rendering it very difficult for the Protector to refuse his consent to anything on which Parliament insisted. The only real solution of the difficulty lay in a frank acknowledgment that the nation must be allowed to have its way for evil or for good. This was, however, precisely what Oliver could not bring himself to acknowledge. He suspected-doubtless with truth-that, if the nation were freely consulted, it would sweep away not only the Protectorate, but Puritanism itself. He therefore required the members of Parliament to sign a paper acknowledging the government as established in a single person and in Parliament, and turned out of the House those who refused to sign it. On January 22, finding that those who remained persisted in completing their new constitution, he dissolved Parliament. 16. The Major-Generals. 1655.--The Instrument of Government authorised the Protector to levy sufficient taxes without consent of Parliament to enable him to meet the expenditure in quiet times, and after the dissolution Oliver availed himself of this authorisation. Many people, however, refused to pay, on the ground that the Instrument, unless recognised by Parliament, was not binding; and, as some of the judges agreed with them, Oliver could only enforce payment by turning out those judges who 1654 1655 A MILITARY PROTECTORATE 571 opposed him, and putting others in their places. Moreover, the Government was embarrassed by attempts to overthrow it. There were preparations for resistance by the republicans in the armysuppressed, indeed, before they came to a head, by the arrest and imprisonment of the leaders-and there was an actual Royalist outburst, with wide ramifications, which was, for the most part, anticipated, but which showed itself openly in the South of England, where a Royalist gentleman named Penruddock rode, into Salisbury, at the head of 200 men, and seized the judges who had come down for the assizes. In the face of such danger, Oliver abandoned all pretence of constitutional government. He divided England into ten military districts, over each of which he set a Major-General, with arbitrary powers for maintaining order, and, by a mere stroke of the pen, ordered a payment of Io per cent. on the incomes of Royalists which was to be collected by the Major-Generals. Military rule developed itself more strongly than ever before. On November 27 Oliver, in his fear of the Royalists, ordered the suppression of the private worship of those who clung to the Book of Common Prayer; perceiving rightly that the most dangerous opponents of his system were to be found amongst sincere Episcopalians. 17. Oliver's Foreign Policy. 1654-1655.—Partly, perhaps, because he hoped to divert attention from his difficulties at home, partly because he wished his country to be great in war as well as in peace, Oliver had for some time been engaging in naval enterprise. In the early part of his career he had been friendly to Spain, because France intrigued with the Presbyterians and the king. France and Spain were still at war, and when Cromwell became Protector he offered his alliance to Spain, on condition that Spain would help him to reconquer Calais, and would place Dunkirk in his hands as a pledge for the surrender of Calais after it had been taken. He also asked for freedom of commerce in the West Indies, and for more open liberty of religion for the English in the Spanish dominions than had been offered by Spain in its treaty with Charles I. To these demands the Spanish ambassador replied sharply that to ask these two things was to ask his master's two eyes, and plainly refused to admit an English garrison into Dunkirk. Upon this, Cromwell sent out, in the end of 1654, two fleets, one-under Blake -to go to the Mediterranean, to get reparation from the Duke of Tuscany and the pirates of Tunis for wrongs done to English commerce; and the other-under Penn and Venables--to seize some great Spanish island in the West Indies. Blake was successful, but Penn and Venables failed in an attempt on San Domingo, though they took possession of Jamaica, which at that time was not thought to be of any great value. 18. The French Alliance. 1655.-As Oliver could not get what he wanted from Spain, he offered his alliance to France. Mazarin, the French Minister, met him half-way, and a bargain was struck for the landing of English troops to help the French. Dunkirk was to be taken by the combined forces, and was to be surrendered to Oliver. Freedom of religion was to be accorded to Englishmen in France. Before any treaty had been signed, news arrived that the Duke of Savoy had sent his soldiers to compel his Vaudois subjects to renounce their religion, which was similar to that of the Protestants, though it had been embraced by them long before Luther's Reformation. These soldiers committed terrible outrages amongst the peaceful mountaineers. Those who escaped the sword were carried off as prisoners, or fled to the snowy mountains, where they perished of cold and hunger. Milton's voice was raised to plead for them. “Avenge,” he wrote— "O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Cromwell at once told Mazarin that, if he cared for the English alliance, this persecution must stop. Mazarin put pressure on the Duke of Savoy, and liberty of worship was secured to the Vaudois. Then, on October 24, 1655, Oliver concluded the alliance with France. Humble Petition 1656, Oliver called He would gladly 19. Oliver's Second Parliament, and the and Advice. 1656.-War is expensive, and, in a second Parliament, to give him money. have received a constitutional support for his Government, yet it was certain that any freely-elected Parliament would try to grasp authority for itself. When Parliament met, on September 17, Cromwell began by excluding about a hundred members who were likely to oppose him. After this, his relations with the House were smoother than they had been in 1654-especially as news arrived that Stainer, with a part of Blake's ships, had captured the Spanish treasure-fleet on its way from America; and, before long, thirty-eight waggons, laden with Spanish silver, rolled through the London streets. Parliament voted the money needed, and Oliver, in return, withdrew the Major-Generals. Then there was |