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Though this is the statement of an enemy, we can very well believe it, for Cromwell's life had been for years aimed at by assassins, both Royalist and Republican, by paid bravoes of Charles II., and by fanatics. These various fears and anxieties told strongly as his health failed. He reached his fifty-ninth year in April, and was therefore pretty advanced towards his sixtieth. For fourteen days before the death of Mrs. Claypole, the Protector was almost day and night by her bedside, not being able to attend to any business in his deep anxiety. Mrs. Claypole died on the 6th of August, and George Fox going to Hampton Court, to represent to Cromwell the persecutions of his friends, on the 20th of that month, met him riding in Hampton Court Park at the head of his Life Guards, and was so struck with his altered appearance, that he said "he felt a waft of death go forth against him, and when he came up to him he looked like a dead man." On hearing George's statement, he desired him to come to the palace to him; but next day, when Fox went thither, he was told that he was much worse, and that the physicians were not willing he should speak with anybody.

Cromwell died on the 3rd of September, the day of Dunbar and Worcester, the day which he had set down as his fortunate day, and which was in nothing more so than in this last event. He laid down a burden which he had often said "was too heavy for man," and with the possession of that form of government which he sincerely deemed essential to truth and liberty still in his grasp. It was a form of government which had no foundation in the convictions of the people, and which sooner or later was bound to fall; and the old prejudices in favour of royalty bring back a fresh lesson of martyrdom to its votaries. The Dictatorship was at an end; it had been maintained by Cromwell's innate vigour, and could only last as long as he did. The day that he died was a day of terrible wind, and his enemies declared that the devil came in it to fetch him away; but his friends said that Nature could not witness the departure of so great a spirit without marking its strong emotion. Many are the sayings of his last hours reported by friends and foes, but it is certain that he expressed his firm belief that he died in the unbroken covenant with God.

On his deathbed the Protector had been asked to name his successor. Empowered by the "Petition and Advice," he had already named him in a sealed packet, which now, however, could not be found, and though he was supposed to say Richard, it was so indistinctly, that it was by no means certain. However, Richard was proclaimed in London and Westminster, and then in all the large towns at home, and in Dunkirk, and the colonies abroad. At first all appeared favourable for the peaceable succession of Richard. All parties hastened to congratulate him. Foreign ministers sent addresses of condolence and intimations of their desire to renew their alliances. From all parts of the country, and from the City, and from one hundred congregational churches, poured in addresses, conceived in the most fulsome affectation of religion. Cromwell had been a Moses, but his son was a Joshua. Elijah was gone, but Elisha remained.

The Royalists were confounded to find everything pass over so smoothly, but all who knew the retiring disposition of Richard, and the volcano of raging materials which lay in the sects, factions, and parties which at that moment divided and agitated England, could only look on it as the lull before the tempest. Richard Cromwell had all his life long displayed a liking only for a quiet country life. He had no ambitions, either military or political. He had lived in his domestic retirement, entering neither the field nor the cabinet, and his father, in his letters, was continually calling him "indolent Dick." It was impossible that such a man could ever curb the fierce and conflicting factions with which he was surrounded; it is most probable that he only longed to be well rid of the whole onerous burden.

There were various leaders in the army so nearly equal in rank and influence that there was sure to be strife for the chief command. Fleetwood had married a sister of the present Protector; Desborough was his uncle; his brother Henry, who was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, was a much more resolute and able man than himself; and Monk, in Scotland, had great power in his hands. The chief command in the army lay, by the late Instrument, in the Protector himself; but the officers of the army met and drew up a petition that the chief command should be conferred on some one of the generals who had shown his attachment to the cause by his services, and that no officer should be deprived of his commission except by sentence of a court-martial. Richard, by the advice of Thurloe, replied that he had appointed General Fleetwood lieutenant-general of the forces, but that to give up the supreme command would be to violate the "Petition and Advice," by which he held his own authority. This did not content the officers; they still held their meetings, a liberty which Oliver had wisely suppressed, and there were many suspicions expressed amongst them. They asserted that Henry Cromwell would soon be placed above Fleetwood, who, though conscientious, was very weak and vacillating, and they demanded that Thurloe, St. John and Pierpoint, Richard's ablest counsellors, should be dismissed, as enemies to the army. It was clear that a collision must take place between these parties and Thurloe, and his friends advised Richard to call a Parliament, by which he would not only be able to curb the power of the officers, but to raise money for the payment of the soldiers. The nation was keeping a large fleet under Ayscue, or Ayscough, part of which was cruising in the Baltic, to protect the English allies, the Swedes, against the Danes and Dutch, and another, under Montague, was blockading the Dutch coast. Money, therefore, was absolutely necessary to defray expenses, and Richard consented to call a Parliament. It was a necessary evil, a formidable undertaking. For the five months that passed before their meeting, Richard ruled with all the outward state, and with more than the quiet of his father. But his father, with all his vigour and tact, had never been able to manage a Parliament, most of the members of which immediately set about to overthrow him; what hope, then, that Richard could contend with such a restless and domineering body? It was absolutely impossible, and he was speedily made sensible of it. To introduce as many members of the Commons as he could favourable to his views, he departed from his father's plan of only calling them from the larger boroughs and the counties, and restored the franchise to the lesser and decayed boroughs. Every means was used besides to obtain the return of men favourable to the Government; and in Scotland and Ireland, from whence thirty members each were admitted, the elections were conducted under the eyes of the commander of the forces. But, notwithstanding, from the very first assembling of the Commons, they showed that they were likely to be as unmanageable as ever. When Richard summoned the Commons to meet him in the Lords scarcely half the members attended, lest they should sanction the existence of a body which they disclaimed. The Commons were as much divided as the army. There were the friends of the Government, who were instructed to stand firm by the "Petition and Advice," and the Government, founded by it, of one ruling person and two Houses of Parliament. Then there were the Presbyterians and Republicans, who were for no Lords nor Protector either, and were led on by Haselrig, Scott, Bradshaw, Lambert, Ludlow, and others of those united parties, with whom Vane and Fairfax now co-operated. Fairfax, from the moment when he showed his disapprobation of the death of Charles I., had retired into private life, but now he reappeared, and though become a Royalist at heart, his spirited lady no doubt having roused that feeling in him, he voted with the Republican party, as most likely to prevail against the Protectorate, and thus pave the way to monarchy. Besides these, there were many neutrals or moderates, and a considerable sprinkling of young Royalists, who, by Charles's advice, had got in under other colours.

However much these parties differed amongst themselves, there were sufficient of them adverse to the Protectorate to commence an immediate attack upon it. They fell at once to debating the legality of the "Petition and Advice," and of course Government by a single person and two Houses. They asked what was the "Petition and Advice," and they declared it to be an instrument of no validity, passed by a very small majority of a House from which a hundred members had been forcibly excluded. The debates were long and violent. Though Parliament met on the 27th of January, 1659, it was the 14th of February before they had decided that Richard's right to the Protectorate should be settled by another Bill, but with much restricted prerogative, and it was not till the 28th of March that they allowed the right of the other House to sit, but with no superiority to the Commons, and with no authority to send messages to it except by members of the House. These points settled, there were high demands for a searching inquiry into the management of all departments of the State, with heavy charges of waste, embezzlement, oppression, and tyranny, in the collection of the excise. Threats of impeachment were held out against Thurloe and the principal ministers, as well as against Butler and some others of the officers.

This aroused the generals, who were themselves divided into two great factions. One set met at Whitehall under Ingoldsby, Whalley, Goffe, Lord Charles Howard, and others favourable to the Protector; another, under Fleetwood and Desborough, met at Wallingford House, who, though the Protector's own relations, were bent on their own and the army's ascendency. They were joined by Lambert, who, after being deprived of his commission, had remained at Wimbledon, cultivating his garden, and seeming to be forgotten; but now he came forth again and was received with enthusiasm by the soldiers, who had great confidence in his ability. Desborough used also to meet with a third party, consisting chiefly of the inferior officers, at St. James's.

At this place of meeting a council of officers was organised, which soon became influential with the Wallingford House, or Fleetwood's, section. Here they drew up an address to Richard, complaining of the arrears of their pay being withheld, and of the neglect with which the army was treated; of the attempts to overthrow the Acts passed by the Long Parliament, and the encouragement thereby given to the Royalists, who were flocking over from Flanders, and exciting discontent against "the good old cause," and against the persons and interests of those who had shed their blood for the Commonwealth. This address was presented on the 14th of April by Fleetwood, with no less than six hundred signatures. Though it did not even mention the name of this Parliament, that body felt that it was directed entirely against them, and immediately voted that no meeting or general council of officers should be held without the consent and order of the Protector, and that no person should hold any command by sea or land who did not forthwith sign an engagement that he would not in any way disturb or prevent the free meeting and debates of Parliament, or the freedom of any member of Parliament. This was certain to produce a retort from the army—it was an open declaration of war upon it; and accordingly Fleetwood and Desborough waited on Richard and assured him that it was absolutely necessary to dissolve Parliament; and Desborough, who was a bold, rough soldier, declared that if he did not do it, he felt sure the army would soon pull him out of Whitehall.