channel through which in these latter days the Divine mercies had been dispensed to the nation. He would not charge them, but he would pray that they might "exercise the judgment of mercy and truth," and might "be faithful with the saints," however those saints might differ as to forms of worship. His enthusiasm kindled as he proceeded, and the visions of futurity began to open to his imagination. It was, he exclaimed, marvellous in his eyes; they were called to war with the Lamb against his enemies; they were come to the threshold of the door, to the very edge of the promises and prophecies; God was about to bring His people out of the depths of the sea; perhaps to bring the Jews home to their station out of the "isles of the sea." "God," he exclaimed, "shakes the mountains and they reel; God hath a high hill too, and this hill is as the hill of Bashan; and the chariots of God are twenty thousand of angels, and God will dwell upon this hill for ever."

At the conclusion of this "grave, christian, and seasonable speech," he placed on the table an instrument under his own hand and seal, entrusting to them the supreme authority for the space of fifteen months from that day, then to be transmitted by them to another assembly, the members of which they should previously have chosen.* The next day was devoted by the new representatives to exercises of religion, not in any of the churches of the capital, but in the room where the late parliament was accustomed to sit. Thirteen of the most gifted among them successively prayed and preached, from eight in the morning till six in the evening, and several affirmed that they had never enjoyed so much of the spirit and presence of Christ in any of the meetings and exercises of religion in all their lives, as they did on that day. As it was solely to their reputation for superior godliness that the majority of the members owed their election, the lord general probably expected from them little opposition to his measures, but they no sooner applied to business than he saw reason to be alarmed at the promptitude and resolution which they displayed. Though not distinguished by their opulence, they were men of independent fortunes; during the late revolutions they had learned to think for themselves on the momentous questions which divided the nation, and their fanaticism, by converting their opinions into matters of conscience, had superadded an obstinacy of character not easily to be subdued. To Cromwell himself they always behaved with respect. They invited him, with four of his officers, to sit as a member among them; and they made him an offer of the palace of Hampton Court in exchange for his house of Newhall. But they believed and showed that they were the masters. They scorned to submit to the dictation of their servants, and if they often followed the advice, they as often rejected the recommendations and amended the resolutions of the council of state.

One of the first subjects that engaged their attention was a contest in which the lord general with all his power was foiled by the boldness of a single individual. At the very moment when he hoped to reap the fruit of his dissimulation and intrigues he found himself unexpectedly confronted by the same fearless and enterprising demagogue, who at the birth of the commonwealth, had publicly denounced his ambition, and incited the soldiers against him. Lilburne on the dissolution of the long parliament, had requested permission of Cromwell to return from banishment. Receiving no answer he came over at his own risk-a bold but imprudent Proceedings, No. 197; Parl. Hist. xx., 153; Milton's State Papers, 106. This last appears to me a more faithful copy than that printed by authority.

They have been generally described as men in trade and of no education; and because one of them, Praise God Barebones, was a leather dealer in Fleet Street, the assembly is generally known as Barebones parliament (Heath I., 350.) It is however observed by one of them that, "if all had not very bulky estates, yet they had free estates, and were not of broken fortunes, or such as owed great sums of money and stood in need of privilege and protection as formerly.” Exact Relation. See also Whitelock, 559.

step; for what indulgence could he expect from that powerful adventurer, whom he had so often denounced to the nation as "a thief, a robber, an usurper, and a murderer?" On the day after his arrival in the capital he was committed to Newgate. It seemed a case which might be safely entrusted to a jury. His return by the act of banishment had been made felony; and of his identity there could be no doubt. But his former partisans did not abandon him in his distress. Petitions with thousands of signatures were presented, praying for a respite of the trial till the meeting of the parliament; and Cromwell, willing perhaps to shift the odium from himself to that assembly, gave his consent. Lilburne petitioned the new parliament, his wife petitioned, his friends from the neighbouring counties petitioned, and the apprentices in London did not only petition, they threatened.

But the council laid before the house the depositions of spies and informers to prove that Lilburne during his banishment had intrigued with the royalists against the commonwealth ;* and the prisoner himself by the intemperance of his publications contributed to irritate the members. They refused to interfere; and he was arraigned at the sessions, where, instead of pleading he kept his prosecutors at bay during five successive days, appealing to Magna Charta and the rights of Englishmen, producing exceptions against the indictment, and demanding his oyer, or the specification of the act for his banishment, of the judgment on which the act was founded, and of the charge which led to that judgment. The court was perplexed. They knew not how to refuse, for he claimed it as his right, and necessary for his defence. On the other hand they could not grant it, because no record of the charge or judgment was known to exist.

After an adjournment to the next sessions, two days were spent in arguing the exceptions of the prisoner, and his right to the oyer. At length on a threat that the court would proceed to judgment he pleaded not guilty. The trial lasted three days. His friends, to the amount of several thousands, constantly attended; some hundreds of them were said to be armed for the purpose of rescuing him if he were condemned, and papers were circulated that if Lilburne perished, twenty thousand individuals would perish with him. Cromwell, to encourage the court, posted two companies of soldiers in the immediate vicinity, quartered three regiments of infantry and one of cavalry in the city, and ordered a numerous force to march towards the metropolis. The particulars of the trial are lost. We only know that the prosecutors were content with showing that Lilburne was the man named in the act, that the court directed the jury to speak only to that fact, and that the prisoner made a long and vehement defence, denying the authority of the late parliament to banish him, because legally it had expired at the king's death, and because the house of commons was not a court of justice, and maintaining to the jury that they were judges of the law as well as the fact, and that unless they believed him guilty of crime, they could not conscientiously return a verdict which would consign him to the gallows, and that an act of parliament, if it were evidently unjust, was essentially void, and no justification to men who pronounced according to their oaths. At a late hour at night the jury declared him not guilty, and the shout of triumph received and prolonged by his partisans, reached the ears of Cromwell at Whitehall. It was not, however, the intention of the lord general that his victim should escape. The examination of the judges and jurymen before the council, with a certified copy of certain opprobrious expressions used by Lilburne in his defence was submitted to the house, and an order was obtained that notwithstanding his acquittal,

It appears from Clarendon's letters at the time that Lilburne was intimate with Buckingham; and that Buckingham professed to expect much from him in behalf of the royal cause. While on the contrary Clarendon believed that Lilburne would do nothing for it, and Buckingham not much more. Clarendon Papers III., 75, 79, 98.

he should be confined in the Tower, and that no obedience should be paid to any writ of habeas corpus issued from the court of upper bench in his behalf. These measures gave great offence. It was complained, and with justice, that the men who pretended to take up arms against the king in support of the liberties of Englishmen, now make no scruple of trampling the same liberties under foot whenever it suited their resentment or interest.*

In the prosecution and punishment of Lilburne the parliament was unanimous; on most other points it was divided into two parties distinctly marked, that of the Independents, who, inferior in number, superior in talent, adhered to the lord general and the council, and that of the Anabaptists, who, guided by religious and political fanaticism, ranged themselves under the banner of major general Harrison as their leader. These "sectaries" anticipated the reign of Christ with his saints upon earth; they believed themselves called by God to prepare the way for this marvellous revolution; and they considered it their duty to commence by reforming all the abuses which they could discover either in church or state.†

In their proceedings there was much to which no one who had embarked with them in the same cause could reasonably object. They established a system of the most rigid economy, the regulations of the excise were revised, the constitution of the treasury was simplified and improved, unnecessary offices were totally abolished, and the salaries of the others considerably reduced, the public accounts were subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny; new facilities were given to the sale of lands now considered as national property. Provision was made for the future registration of marriages, births and deaths. But the fanaticism of their language, and the extravagance of their notions exposed them to ridicule; their zeal for reform, by interfering with the interests of several different bodies, at the same time multiplied their enemies, and before the dissolution of the house, they had earned, justly or unjustly, the hatred of the army, of the lawyers, of the gentry, and of the clergy.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PROTECTORATE.

DR. LINGARD.

The enemies of these reformers multiplied daily; ridicule and abuse were poured upon them from every quarter, and it became evident to all but themselves that the hour of their fall was rapidly approaching. Cromwell, their maker, had long ago determined to reduce them to their original nothing, but their last vote respecting the ministry § appeared to furnish a favourable opportunity. The next day, the

* He was sent from the Tower to Elizabeth Castle, Jersey, and afterwards became a Quaker in Dover Castle. On the death of Cromwell he was discharged, and died in 1660. Sewell, 227, 231. See Thurloe I., 324, 367, 8, 9, 429, 430, 435, 441, 2, 451, 453, &c., &c.

Thurloe I., 392, 6, 501, 515, 523.

For the validity of marriage, if the parties were minors, was required the consent of the parents or guardians, and the age of sixteen in the male, of fourteen in the female, and in all cases that the names of the parties intending to be married should be given to the registrar of the parish, whose duty it was to proclaim them, according to their wish, either in the church after the morning service on three successive Lord's days, or in the market place on three successive market days. Having received from him a certificate of the proclamations, containing the exceptions that might have been made, they were to exhibit it to a magistrate and before him to pledge their faith to each other "in the presence of God the searcher of hearts." The religious ceremony was optional, the civil necessary for the civil effects of marriage. See the Journals for the month of August, and Scobell.

§ The chief causes of offence given by the little parliament were unwillingness to vote the £120,000 for the pay of the army and navy; their wish to abolish the existing laws and compose a new body of law which might be comprised within the compass of a pocket volume; and their resolution to do away with tithes and advowsons. [Editor.]

Sunday, he passed with his friends in secret consultation; on the Monday these friends mustered in considerable numbers, and at an early hour took their seats in the house. Colonel Sydenham rose. He reviewed all the proceedings of the parliament, condemned them as calculated to injure every interest in the state, and declaring that he would no longer sit in so useless an assembly, moved that the house should proceed to Whitehall, and deliver back the supreme power into the hands of him from whom it was derived. The motion was seconded and opposed, but the Independents had come to act, not to debate. They immediately rose: the speaker, who was in the secret, left the chair; the sergeant and the clerk accompanied him, and near fifty members followed in a body. The reformers, only twenty-seven in number (for most of them had not yet arrived), gazed on each other with surprise; their first resource was to fall to prayer, and they were employed in that holy exercise when Goff and White, two officers, entered, and requested them to withdraw. Being required to show their warrant, they called in a company of soldiers. No resistance was now offered; the military cleared the house, and the keys were left with the guard.*

In the meanwhile the speaker, preceded by the mace, and followed by Sydenham and his friends, walked through the streets to Whitehall. In the way, and after his arrival, he was joined by several members, by some through curiosity, by others through fear. At Whitehall, a form of resignation of the supreme power was hastily engrossed by the clerk, subscribed by the speaker and his followers, and tendered by them to Cromwell. The lord general put on an air of surprise; he was not prepared for such an offer, he would not load himself with so heavy a burden. But his reluctance yielded to the remonstrances and entreaties of Lambert and the officers, and the instrument was laid in a chamber of the palace for the convenience of such members as had not yet the opportunity of subscribing their names. On the third day the signatures amounted to eighty, an absolute majority of the whole house; and on the fourth a new constitution was published, and Cromwell obtained the great object of his ambition-the office and the authority without the title of king.†

On that day, about one in the afternoon, the lord general repaired in his carriage from the palace to Westminster Hall, through two lines of military, composed of five regiments of foot and three of horse. The procession formed at the door. Before him walked the aldermen, the judges, two commissioners of the great seal, and the lord mayor; behind him the two councils of state and the army. They mounted to the court of chancery where a chair of state with a cushion had been placed on a rich carpet. Cromwell was dressed in a suit and cloak of black velvet,

with long boots, and a broad gold band round his hat. He took his place before the chair, between the two commissioners; the judges stood in a half circle behind it, and the civic officers ranged themselves on the right, the military on the left, side of the court.

* Exact Relation, 25, 26; True Narrative, 3; Thurloe I., 730, 637. I adopt the number given by Mansel, as he could have no motive to diminish it.

+ Exact Relation, 26; True Narrative, 4; Ludlow II., 33; Clarendon III., 484; Thurloe I., 754. The author of this new constitution is not known. Ludlow tells us that it was first communicated by Lambert to a council of field-officers. When some objections were made, he replied, that the general was willing to consider any amendments which might be proposed, but would not depart from the project itself. Some therefore suggested that, after the death of the present lord general the civil and military government should be kept separate, and that no protector should be succeeded by any of his relatives. This gave so much offence that, at a second meeting Lambert, having informed them that the lord general would take care of the civil administration, dismissed them to their respective commands. Ludlow II., 37. It is to this, perhaps, that the Dutch ambassador alludes, when he says that Cromwell desisted from his project of being made king on account of the displeasure of the officers. Thurloe I., 644.

Lambert came forward to address the lord general. He noticed the dissolution of the late parliament, observed that the exigency of the time required a strong and stable government, and prayed his excellency in the name of the army and of the three nations to accept the office of protector of the commonwealth. Cromwell, though it was impossible to conceal the purpose for which he had come thither, could not yet put off the habit of dissimulation; and if, after some demur, he expressed his consent, it was with an appearance of reluctance which no one present could believe to be real.

Jessop, one of the clerks of the council, was next ordered to read the "Instrument of Government," consisting of forty-two articles. 1. By it the legislative power was vested in a lord protector and parliament, but with a provision that every act passed by the parliament should become law at the expiration of twenty days, even without the consent of the protector, unless he could persuade the house of the reasonableness of his objections. The parliament was not to be adjourned, prorogued or dissolved without its own consent, within the first five months after its meeting; and a new parliament was to be called within three years after the dissolution of the last. The number of the members was fixed according to the plan suggested by Vane at the close of the long parliament, at 400 for England, 30 for Scotland, and 30 for Ireland. Most of the boroughs were disfranchised, and the number of county members was increased. Every person possessed of real or personal property to the value of £200 had a right to vote,* unless he were a malignant or delinquent, or professor of the catholic faith; and the disqualifications to which the electors were subject, attached also to the persons elected. 2. The executive power was made to reside in the lord protector, acting with the advice of his council. He possessed, moreover, the power of treating with foreign states with the advice, and of making peace or war, with the consent of the council. To him also belonged the disposal of the military and naval power, and the appointment of the great officers of state, with the approbation of parliament, and, in the intervals of parliament, with that of the council, but subject to the subsequent approbation of the parliament. 3. Laws could not be made, nor taxes imposed but by common consent in parliament. 4. The civil list was fixed at £200,000, and a yearly revenue ordered to be raised for the support of an army of 30,000 men, twothirds infantry, and one-third cavalry, with such a navy as the lord protector should think necessary. 5. All who professed faith in God by Jesus Christ were to be protected in the exercise of their religion, with the exception of prelatists, papists, and those who taught licentiousness under pretence of religion. 6. The lord general Cromwell was named lord protector; his successors were to be chosen by the council. The first parliament was to assemble on the third of the following December, and till that time the lord protector was vested with power to raise the monies necessary for the public service, and to make ordinances which should have the force of law, till orders were taken in parliament respecting the same.

At the conclusion Cromwell, raising his right hand and his eyes to heaven, swore to observe and cause to be observed, all the articles of the instrument; and Lambert, falling on his knees, offered to the protector a civic sword in the scabbard, which he accepted, laying aside his own, to denote that he meant to govern by constitutional and not by military authority. He then seated himself in the chair, put on his hat while the rest stood uncovered, received the seal from the commissioners, the sword from the lord mayor, delivered them back again to the same individuals, and having

* During the long parliament this qualification had been adopted, on the motion of Cromwell, in place of a clause recommended by the committee, which gave the elective franchise under different regulations to freeholders, copyholders, tenants for life, and leaseholders. See Journals, 30th March, 1653.