negative voice, so that no constitutional innovation could be made without the Protector's consent.

Of

the four fundamentals, the first two-the one relating to the position of the single person and the other refusing to Parliament the right of perpetuating itself -were accepted without opposition. The other two raised greater difficulties. The House was very far from being anxious to extend religious liberty as widely as the Protector desired, but it ultimately agreed to a form of words which practically left the decision in his hands. The absolutely insurmountable difficulty was found in the disposal of the army. In the first place, Parliament held out for the diminution of the numbers of the regular forces to the 30,000 men allowed by the Instrument, and required that if more were needed they should be raised in the form of a militia which would fall more readily under the influence of the local gentry. In the second place, the House resolved to limit its grant of supply to the taxation required for the maintenance of the army for a term of five years only, thus reserving to itself the ultimate financial control which spells sovereignty. Cromwell's whole soul recoiled from the acceptance of a scheme which would render nugatory the proposed constitutional restrictions of Parliamentary omnipotence, by enabling Parliament, at the end of the assigned term, to stop the supplies without which the army could not be maintained; unless indeed,

when that term reached its end, the Protector chose to employ his army to crush the Parliament of 1659 as he had employed it to crush the Parliament of 1653. Parliamentary supremacy or military despotism were the alternatives which Oliver or his successor would have to face in the not very distant future.

If two men ride on one horse, one of them must ride in front, and this sober physical truth is equally applicable to the realm of politics. No paper constitution, however deserving of veneration, can prevent there being some force in every nation capable of making itself supreme if it chooses to do so. It may be the constituencies, as in England at the end of the nineteenth century; the people consulted in mass, as in the United States; or the army, as in England in the middle of the seventeenth century. Such supremacy may be subjected to the checks of written or unwritten constitutions, and may be thus thrust into the background till called forth by some special crisis; but in the long run it is impossible to prevent supreme power from exerting itself. The defect of Oliver's fourth fundamental was that it sought to divide the control of the army, or, in other words, Sovereignty, between Protector and Parliament, at a time when. the Protector was powerless to act in defiance of the army. It is useless to deny that he was perfectly in the right in hesitating to hand over supreme power to a Parliament uncontrolled by the nation, and

capable of using its financial authority to demolish any system of government that might stand in the way of the ambitions of its members. It is equally undeniable that, as he was unable to depend on the nation as a whole, he had nothing to fall back upon except a Protectorate which, in reality, was controlled by the will of the leading officers, who found in the provisions of the Instrument which they had themselves originated the means of perpetuating their own power by securing-irrespective of the concurrence of Parliament or nation-the levy of taxes, the amount of which was fixed by the Protector and Council alone.

Oliver having once made up his mind to refuse his consent to the new constitution, was anxious to hasten the dissolution of the Parliament. The Instrument having provided that the House should sit for five months, he opportunely remembered that the months by which the army's pay was regulated were lunar months; and on January 22, 1655, when five lunar months were expired, he pronounced its dissolution. The speech in which he announced his determination was stamped with vexation of spirit at the failure of his hopes, a vexation in itself by no means unjustifiable. The tragedy of the situation lay in the undoubted fact that however much they might differ on the means to be pursued, the end at which Protector and Parliament aimed was identical, namely,

the conversion of the military into the civil state. Parliament had counted it well done to leave Oliver in possession for five years, whilst Oliver, conscious of his own rectitude of purpose, and ignoring the consideration that at the end of five years he might no longer be living, and that the Protectorate might have passed by demise into less worthy hands, complained that he was not trusted. Why, he asked, had they not come to him to talk the matter over? Why indeed, except that Parliaments have their pride as well as Protectors, and that this one had come to the conclusion that it was its duty to settle the constitution rather than to accept a settlement from a knot of soldiers. If it did not seek an opportunity to discuss such grave questions with Oliver in person, at least it had had the advantage of listening to what might be presumed to be his views when promulgated by those members of his Council who were also members of the House.

In an elaborate defence of the Instrument, Oliver put his finger on the real ground of offence. "Although," he declared in speaking of the rights of the Protector, "for the present the keeping up and having in his power the militia seems the most hard, yet, if it should be yielded up at such a time as this when there is as much need to keep this cause by it -which is evidently at this time impugned by all the enemies of it-as there was to get it, what would

become of all? Or if it should not be equally placed in him and the Parliament, but yielded up at any time, it determines the Power," i.e., hinders the exercise of authority by the person in possession of power, "either from doing the good he ought, or hindering Parliaments from perpetuating themselves, or from imposing what religion they please on the consciences of men, or what government they please upon the nation; thereby subjecting us to dis-settlement in every Parliament, and to the desperate consequences thereof: and if the nation shall happen to fall into a blessed peace, how easily and certainly will their charge be taken off, and their forces disbanded; and then, where will the danger be to have the militia thus stated?"

It was impossible for the Protector to put his case more convincingly. Yet, admirable as a criticism. pointing out the danger likely to follow on the adoption of the proposals of Parliament, Oliver's reasoning pre-supposed the acceptance by Parliament of his own conviction that an armed minority had the right to impose its principles on the unarmed majority-the very belief which the authors of the Parliamentary constitution were most determined to resist. Even if it had been possible for any Puritan party to look for a solution of the problem in an appeal to the unfettered judgment of the nation, it is evident that Oliver would never have agreed to such an arbitration. On the