URING the last weeks of Charles's life, the army, in co-operation with some of the Levellers, had drawn up an enlarged edition of The Agreement of the People, a task which was completed on January 15. In accordance with Cromwell's wish, this proposed constitution was laid before Parliament on the 20th for its approval, instead of being imposed on Parliament by a previous vote amongst the so-called wellaffected. Parliament being sufficiently busy at the time, laid the proposal aside with a few well-chosen compliments. The members had no wish to engage, at such a moment, in the uncertainties of a general election.

There can be little doubt that in this matter Cromwell was instinctively in the right. That mutilated Parliament to which modern writers give the name of "the Rump," though no such word was employed by contemporaries till its reappearance on the scene some time after Cromwell's death, was in possession of the field. It now contented itself with proclaiming England to be a Commonwealth without King or House of Lords, and with electing an annually renewable Council of State to perform executive functions under its own control. The first political act of the sovereign Parliament was to order the execution of the Duke of Hamilton, of the Earl of Holland and Lord Capel, who, having taken the King's part in the last war, had been condemned by a High Court of Justice, similar to the one that had sent Charles to the block. For the moment the most serious danger to the young Commonwealth arose from the opposition of Lilburne and the Levellers who, not content with asking, on the ground of abstract principles, for the immediate foundation of a democratic Republic in the place of the existing makeshift arrangement, extended their propaganda to the army itself, appealing to the private soldiers against the officers. Lilburne and three of his supporters were summoned before the Council. Lilburne, having threatened to burn down any place in which he might be imprisoned, was directed to retire. From the outer room he listened to the voices in the Council chamber.

"I tell you, sir," said

Cromwell, you have no other way of dealing with these men but to break them, or they will break you; yea, and bring all the guilt of the blood and treasure shed and spent in this kingdom upon your heads. and shoulders; and frustrate and make void all that work that, with so many years' industry, toil and pains you have done, and so render you to all rational men in the world as the most contemptiblest generation of silly, low-spirited men in the earth, to be broken and routed by such a despicable, contemptible generation of men as they are, and therefore, Sir, I tell you again, you are necessitated to break them.” sympathise with Lilburne now in his desire to establish government by the people, to confirm individual right, and to restrain the commanders

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of the army from political power. Yet, after all, the practical necessities of the hour were on Cromwell's side.

It was not long before the mutinous spirit to which Lilburne appealed showed itself in the army. A regiment quartered at Salisbury refused obedience to its officers, and roamed about the country seeking for other bodies of troops with which they might combine. Fairfax set out from London in chase, and on the night of May 14th Cromwell, by a forced march with his cavalry, overtook the mutineers at Burford. Three were

executed, and the remainder submitted to the inevitable.

It was the more necessary to keep the army in hand, as there was renewed fighting in prospect. The eldest son of the late King, now claiming the title of Charles II., was about to make an effort to seat himself on his father's throne, and hoped, as his father had hoped before him, to have on his side the forces of Scotland and Ireland. For many years the problem of the relations between the three countries had been inviting a solution. Both Scotland and Ireland had social and political interests of their own, and the natural reluctance of the inhabitants of either country to see these merged in those of the wealthier and more numerous people of England would in any case have called for delicate handling. The rise for the first time of a powerful army in England made her relations with the two other countries even more difficult than before, and had contributed fully as much as zeal for Presbyterianism to the ridiculous scheme of re-establishing Charles I. as a covenanting King. After the defeat of Hamilton, indeed, Argyle and the Scottish clergy had welcomed Cromwell's support in the overthrow of the power of the nobility, but the dread of English predominance had not been entirely dispelled, and the King's execution added a sentimental grievance to other causes of alarm. fusing to allow any English government to dispose of Scotland, the Scots. were undoubtedly within their rights; but when on February 5, they proclaimed Charles II. not merely as King of Scotland, but as King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, they took up a position which no English government could allow to remain unchallenged, whilst in adding

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a condition that Charles was to be admitted to to be admitted to power only on his engagement to rule according to the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant, they put forward the monstrous claim to control the religious development of England and Ireland, as well as of their own country.

The necessity-according to these conditions-of coming to an understanding with Charles, made Scotland little dangerous for the moment, and enabled the English Parliament to turn its attention to Ireland, to which Charles I. had looked hopefully after the failure of the Hamilton invasion. Ormond, who had formerly headed Charles's partisans in Ireland, now returned to that country as the King's Lord Lieutenant, and had brought under his leadership, not only his old followers, but the army of the Confederate Catholics. Though Owen O'Neill, at the head of an army raised amongst the Celts of Ulster, kept aloof, the way seemed open for Ormond to attack Dublin, which was now guarded by a Parliamentary garrison under Michael Jones, and was almost the only place in Ireland still holding out for England. As in Scotland, so in Ireland, the question was not so much whether England was to win forcible mastery over those portions of the British Isles outside her borders, as whether they were to be used to determine the political institutions of England herself. The attacks on Ireland and Scotland, which were now to follow, were in a certain sense, acts of defensive warfare.

Το no man more than Cromwell this thought present. was An Englishman of Englishmen his bitterest complaint against the late King had been that he had attempted to "vassalise" England to a foreign nation, and when on March 15 he was named to the command, he explained to his brother officers the reasons which inclined him to accept the post. "Truly," he said, this is really believed:-If we do not endeavour to make good our interest there, and that timely, we shall not only have our interest rooted out there, but they will, in a very short time, be able to land forces in England and put us to trouble here; and I confess I have these thoughts with myself that perhaps may be carnal

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