nearest approach he ever made to the enunciation of a constitutional principle. Though the Council of the Army, he declared, was not 'wedded and glued to forms of government,' it was prepared to maintain the doctrine that 'the foundation and the supremacy is in the people-radically in them-and to be set down by them in their representations,' in other words by their representatives in Parliament. To conciliate this doctrine with the upholding of the ancient constitution, reformed indeed, but unaltered in its main features, was the problem which the nation solved for itself in 1689, but which neither the nation nor Cromwell could contrive to solve so long as Charles I. refused to face the teaching of events.

On the following day, after a prayer-meeting held in compliance with a suggestion from the pious Colonel Goffe, the Army Council met again, to resolve, after long debate, to lay aside the consideration of the engagements of the army and to proceed at once to the examination of The Agreement of the People. This determination was a check to Cromwell, who had proposed the committee. It was not long before his prudence was justified. A debate sprang up on the question of manhood suffrage, claimed by the Levellers as being in accordance with natural right, and rejected by their opponents, to whom natural right was a mere absurdity. After a fierce dispute, Cromwell did his best to persuade the meeting to avoid abstract con

siderations, and to content itself with the discussion of such questions as whether the existing franchise could be in any way improved. His characteristic tendency to look to the preservation of ancient rights finding no scope in any possible scheme for the retention of the monarchy, fixed itself on the question of the constitution of Parliament. Colonel Rainsborough, who, on questions relating to Parliamentary elections, was the chief speaker on the side of the Levellers, proposed an appeal from the Army Council to the Army at large. His proposal found no support and the Council broke up without coming to a decision.

After this Cromwell had his way. On the 30th the committee which he suggested, and on which both parties were represented, met to consider the points at issue. The constitutional scheme to which its assent was given followed the lines of The Heads of the Proposals more than those of The Agreement of the People. It proposed reforms, not an entire shifting of the basis of government. Above all, it adhered to the view that the new constitution should come into existence by an agreement between King and Parliament-not by an appeal to the natural rights of man. In the long run Cromwell was justified by the event. On no other basis would the distressed nation find rest. His wisdom so far as present results were concerned was less conspicuous.

The next meeting of the Army Council was held

under discouraging circumstances. Charles, who had for some time been established at Hampton Court, had refused to renew the parole which he had given, and it had been found necessary to strengthen his guards. Though there was no accurate knowledge at Putney of his intrigue with the Scots, enough had leaked out to raise grave suspicion, and when, on November 1, Cromwell again took the chair, he called on those present to 'speak their experiences as the issue of what God had given in answer to their prayers'. The result was distinctly unfavourable to the King. One said that the negative voice of the King and Lords must be taken away; another that he could no longer pray for the King; a third that their liberties must be recovered by the sword. Cromwell did his best to stem the tide. modern historian might do, that there had been faults on both sides, he called on 'him that was without sin amongst them to cast the first stone'. He then turned to the more practical question of the difficulty of maintaining discipline in the army, if the authority of Parliament were shut off. "If there be no Parliament," he argued, "they are nothing likewise." Though Cromwell was not yet prepared to strike at the King, he no longer regarded his comprehension in the new constitution as absolutely essential. He was even ready to accept the new democratic basis of The Agreement of the People,

Pointing out, just as a

nothing, and we are

if there should be a wide demand for it. He must look, he said, for 'a visible presence of the people, either by subscriptions or numbers-for in the government of nations that which is to be looked after is the affections of the people'. For the present, however, he seemed most inclined to trust in Parliament as the source of authority. On one thing he was clear, that the discipline of the army must not be ruined by such an appeal to the general body of the soldiers in support of the Agreement as Rainsborough had contemplated. "I must confess," he said, "that I have a commission from the General, and I understand what I am to do by it. I shall conform to him according to the rules and discipline of war . . . and therefore I conceive it is not in the power of any particular men, or any particular man in the army, to call a rendezvous of a troop, or regiment, or in the least to disoblige the army from the commands of the General. . . . Therefore I shall move what we shall centre upon. If it have but the face of authority, if it be but a hare swimming over the Thames I will take hold of it rather than let it go."

It was hard, indeed, in those days, to say where the face of authority was to be found, and Cromwell was far from being able to solve the question. The most innocent suggestion made by his opponents was that the army must purge Parliament and declare the King responsible for the ruin of the country. Goffe

declared that it had been revealed to him that the sin of the army lay in its tampering with God's enemies, in other words, with Charles. Cromwell struck in with an expression of distrust in personal revelations. He himself, he explained, was guided by God's dispensations, that is to say, in more modern phrase, by the requirements of the situation. He acknowledged that danger was to be apprehended from the King and House of Lords, and that it was not his intention 'to preserve the one or the other with a visible danger and destruction to the people and the public interest'. On the other hand, he refused to accept it as certain that God had determined to destroy King and Lords, though he thought it probable that it was So. In the end, the constitutional discussion was transferred to a committee.

For a right judgment of Cromwell's character and habits of procedure no evidence exists of such importance as that which has been thus summarised. Here at least is laid bare before us his reluctance to abandon an untenable position, long after it has become clear to more impatient spirits that it has become untenable. Yet his hesitation is not based on any timorous reluctance to act. It arises from his keen sense of the danger of any alternative policy, a sense which will be overmastered as soon as action in one direction or the other becomes a manifest necessity. On November 8, seeing that the Levellers were bent on