This speech confounded Royalists and Extremists alike. He recommended a Presbyterian government and the exclusion of monarchy; but he saw well enough what the effect of his measure would be; the Royalist excluded members would rush in, and the recall of the king would be the inevitable consequence. Accordingly the excluded members proceeded directly to the House with the other members. The guard under Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper opened and admitted them. At this sight Haselrig, Scott, and the Republican party thought it high time to consult their own security, and disappeared from the scene. The House at once set to work; annulled all the orders by which they had been excluded; elected a new Council of State, in which the most influential members were Royalists; appointed Monk Commander-in-Chief, and Commander of the Fleet in conjunction with Montague; granted him twenty thousand pounds in lieu of Hampton Court, which the Rump had settled on him; freed from sequestration Sir George Booth and his associates, who had risen for the king, together with a great number of Cavaliers and Scottish lords taken at the Battle of Worcester; borrowed sixty thousand pounds of the Common Council, established for the present the Presbyterian confession of faith; ordered copies of the Solemn League and Covenant to be hung up in all churches; placed the militia and all the chief commands in the hands of the principal nobility and gentry; and only stipulated that no person should be capable of office or command who did not subscribe to the confession—"that the war raised by the two Houses of Parliament against the late king was just and lawful, until such time as force and violence were used upon the Parliament in the year 1648."

INTERIOR OF THE PAINTED CHAMBER, WESTMINSTER, LOOKING EAST.

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But at this point it was contended by the Royalists that the House of Lords was as much a House as themselves, and that they could not legally summon a new Parliament without them; but Monk would listen to nothing of this kind. He declared that as much had been conceded as the country would bear; and the Parliament was compelled to dissolve itself at the time fixed.

There could certainly be no longer any uncertainty as to whither things were tending. The Royalists were again in full power all over the kingdom, the very insurgents in the cause of Charles were liberated, freed from all penalties, and in many cases advanced to places of trust; yet Monk still dissembled. Ludlow, a staunch Republican, on the re-admission of the excluded members, went to Monk to sound him as to his intentions, and urged the necessity of supporting the Commonwealth, which had cost them so much. Monk replied with solemn hypocrisy, "Yea, we must live and die together for a Commonwealth." Yet Monk had now made up his mind: he saw that all was prepared, all perfectly safe, and during the recess he was busy arranging with the king's agents for his return. Immediately on Monk's joyful reception by the City, a Mr. Baillie, who had gone through Cheapside amongst the bonfires, and heard the king's health drunk in various places, and people talking of sending for the king, had posted off to Brussels, where Charles was. On this Sir John Grenville and a Mr. Morrice, a Devonshire Royalist, were instantly sent over to Monk, with propositions for the king's return. Clarendon assures us that so early as the beginning of April these gentlemen were in London, and in consultation with Monk, who told them that if the king would write a letter to Parliament containing the same statements, he would find a fit time to deliver it, or some other means to serve his Majesty; but that Charles must quit Flanders to give his partisans confidence that he was out of the power of the Spaniards, and would be free to act on their call; that he must go to Breda, and date his papers thence.

All this was done, and so little secrecy was observed by the Royalists on the Continent, that it was immediately known at all the courts that the king was about to be recalled, and Spaniards, Dutch, French princes and ministers, who had treated Charles with the utmost neglect and contempt, now overwhelmed him with compliments, invitations, flatteries, and offers. The Dutch Court, where was his sister, the mother of the young Stadtholder, had been as discourteous as the rest, but they now united in receiving him and doing him honour. Breda already swarmed with English Royalists, who flocked from every quarter to pay their respects.

This was observed in England with a complacency which sufficiently indicated that men's minds were made up to the restoration of the monarchy. The ultra-Republican party alone, whose zeal never condescended to measure the chances against them, endeavoured to raise the soldiers to oppose the menaced catastrophe. The army had on former occasions maintained the Commonwealth. The emissaries of the Republicans, therefore, spread themselves everywhere amongst the soldiers, warning them of the certainty of all their sacrifices, their labours, and their victories being in vain if they did not once more save the State. The old fire revived; the soldiers contemplated the loss of their arrears if the Royalists came into power, the officers the loss of their lands and their commands. They began to express vehement discontent, and the officers flocked into the capital and called on Monk to take measures for the maintenance of the Commonwealth. He professed to be bound to that object, though he had at the time in his pocket a commission from Charles constituting him Lord-General of all the military in the three kingdoms. He ordered the officers to return to their posts, and put an oath of obedience to the Parliament to the privates—all who refused it being discharged.