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and the grey worsted stockings which appear to have been considered unsuitable to a member in his place in Parliament, he sat for a while in silence. When the Speaker put the question that 'this Bill do pass,' he rose to speak. Dwelling at first on the pains and care of the public good which had characterised the early days of the Long Parliament, he proceeded to blame the members for their later misconduct, holding up to scorn 'their injustice, delays of justice, selfinterest, and other faults . . . charging them not to have a heart to do anything for public good,' and to have ' espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery and lawyers who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression'. Their last crime was the present attempt to perpetuate themselves in power. "Perhaps," he continued, his wrath growing upon him as he spoke, "you think this is not Parliamentary language. I confess it is not, neither are you to expect any such from me." Then striding up and down the floor of the House, he pointed to individual members, charging them with corruption or immorality. "It is not fit," he added, "that you should sit as a Parliament any longer. You have sat long enough, unless you had done more good." Then, upon a remonstrance from Sir Peter Wentworth, he took the final step. Come, come!" he cried, "I will put an end to your prating. You are no Parliament. I say you are no Parliament. I will put an end to your sitting." Then turning to

Harrison, he uttered the fateful words, "Call them in; call them in". The door was thrown open and thirty or forty musketeers tramped in. "This," exclaimed Vane, "is not honest, yea it is against morality and common honesty." It was to Vane's broken word that Cromwell, whether truly or falsely, attributed the necessity of acting as he was now doing. Doubtless with a touch of sadness in his voice, he addressed his old friend-his brother, as he had long styled him-with the veiled reproof: "Oh, Sir Henry Vane! Sir Henry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane!"

Harrison

The hall of meeting was soon cleared. handed Speaker Lenthall down from the chair. Algernon Sidney had to be removed with some show of compulsion. Most of the members yielding to the inevitable trooped out without even this nominal resistance. "It's you," said Cromwell as they filed past him, "that have forced me to this, for I have sought the Lord night and day that He would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work." Glancing at the mace he asked "What shall we do with this bauble?" Ordering Captain Scott to remove it from the table, he bade him take it away. When all was over, carrying the Bill on Elections under his cloak, he returned to Whitehall. In the afternoon he dispersed in like manner-the Council of State, assuring its members that they could sit no longer, the

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Parliament having been dissolved. "Sir," replied Bradshaw, "we have heard what you did at the House in the morning, and before many hours all England will hear it; but, Sir, you are mistaken to think that the Parliament is dissolved; for no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore take you notice of that."

213

CHAPTER V.

THE NOMINATED PARLIAMENT AND THE PRO

TECTORATE.

Legality was clearly
Yet it must not be

As at the trial of the King, so in the ejection of Parliament, Cromwell had been thrown back on the employment of military force. against him on both occasions. forgotten that he was the last to concur in the employment of force; and that there was much to be said for his assertion that the sitting members were no Parliament. Reduced by the flight of Royalists to the King in 1642 and by Pride's Purge in 1648, they had, after an existence of twelve years and a half, little remaining to them of that representative character which is the very being of a Parliament. At all events, this time, at least, Cromwell was secure of popular favour. Not a single voice was raised in defence of the expelled members. In the evening some wag scrawled on the door of the Parliament House: "This House to be let unfurnished". Parliament disappeared amidst general derision. all that, the work before Cromwell was one of enormous

The

For

perhaps even of hopeless difficulty. Without Parliament or King, the nation was thrown upon its own resources to reconstruct its institutions as best it might. It was inevitable that in such stress of storm it should hark back to the old paths, and should see no prospect of settled government, save in the restoration of the throne, or at least in the election of another Parliament. Yet this was the very thing that Cromwell and all who were associated with him most dreaded. It was but too probable that such a solution would sweep away not only Puritanism, but all hope of political reform. Everything for which the army had fought and for which the nation had suffered was at stake, and it was not in human nature-certainly not in Cromwell's nature-to make such a sacrifice without a struggle. That such a struggle could only be prolonged with the support of the army was selfevident. Cromwell, however, was the last of men to desire to establish a purely military government, and the army, to do it justice, was commanded by men who were, for the most part, desirous to support their general in the experiment of establishing a civil government which would have dispensed with the interference of military power. The tragedy-the glorious tragedy-of Cromwell's subsequent career lay in the impossibility of permanently checking the instincts of military politicians to intervene in favour of those guarantees regarded by them as indispensable

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