Then, however, there was the second intervention. It was in the lobby of the House. Some persons, acting for the Clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery, stood there, with tickets certifying that such and such members had been duly returned and also "approved by his Highness's Council"; the doors of the House were guarded by soldiers; and none but those for whom the tickets had been made out were allowed to enter. About ninety-three found themselves thus excluded; among whom, were Hasilrig, Scott, Irby, Sir Harbottle Grimston, the Earl of Salisbury, Maynard, four of the six members for the city of London, and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. The residue, who had received tickets, proceeded to constitute the House, and unanimously elected Sir Thomas Widdrington, Sergeant at Law and one of the Commissioners of the Treasury, for their Speaker. Almost the only other business that day was to thank Dr. Owen for his sermon, and order it to be printed.1
1: Commons Journals, Sept. 17, 1656; and Parl. Hist. III. 1484-1487.
The next day there was read in the House a letter to the Speaker, signed by a number of the excluded, informing him of the fact and desiring to be admitted. Through that and the two following sittings, an inquiry into the circumstances of the exclusion formed part of the proceedings. The Clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery, being required to attend, did at last present himself, and explained that he had but obeyed orders. He had received a letter from Mr. Jessop, the Clerk of the Council, ordering him to deliver tickets only to such of the persons elected as should be certified to him as approved by the Council; and he had acted accordingly. With some reluctance, he produced the letter; and the House then resolved to ask the Council for their reasons for excluding so many members. These were given, on the 20th, by Fiennes for the Council. They were to the effect that Article XXI. of the constituting Instrument of the Protectorate, called The Government of the Commonwealth (Vol. IV. pp. 542-544), required the Clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery, for the first three Parliaments of the Protectorate, to report to the Council what persons had been returned, and empowered the Council to admit those duly qualified and to exclude others, and also that, by another clause in the same Instrument (Art. XVII.), it was required that the persons elected should be "of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation." All which being undeniable, it was resolved by the House, after debate, Sept. 22, by a majority of 125 to twenty-nine, to refer the excluded to the Council itself for any farther satisfaction they wanted, and meanwhile "to proceed with the great affairs of the nation." The House, without the excluded, it will be seen, was decidedly Oliverian in the main. The excluded, or some of them, took their revenge by printing and distributing a Protest or Remonstrance addressed to the Nation, with the names of all the ninety-three attached, those of Hasilrig and Scott first. It was a document of extreme vehemence, denouncing the Protector as an armed tyrant and all who had abetted him in his last act as capital enemies to the Commonwealth, and disowning beforehand, as null and void, all that the truncated Parliament might do. Cromwell took no notice whatever of this Remonstrance. By one more stroke of "arbitrariness," bolder than any before, but allowed, he might plead, by the Instrument of his Protectorate, he had fashioned for himself a Second Parliament, likely to be more to his mind than his First.1
1: Commons Journals, Sept, 18-22, 1656; Whitlocke, IV. 274-280 (where the Remonstrance of the Excluded is given in full); Ludlow, 579-580.
So it proved. Some of the excluded having been admitted after all, and new elections having been made in cases where members had been returned by two or more constituencies, the House went on for the first five months (Sept. 1656-Feb. 1656-7) with a pretty steady working attendance of about 220 at the maximum—which implies that, besides the excluded, there must have been a large number of absentees or very lax attenders. During these five months a large amount of miscellaneous business was done, with occasional divisions, but no vital disagreement within the House, or between it and the Protector. There was an Act for renouncing and disavowing Charles II, over again, and an Act for the safety of the Lord Protector's person and government, both made law, by Cromwell's assent, Oct. 27. There was a vote of approbation of the war with Spain, with votes of means for carrying it on. There were Bills, more formal than before, for adjusting and completing the incorporation of Scotland and Ireland with the Commonwealth. There were Committees of all sorts for maturing these and other Bills. Among the grand Committees was one for Religion. There were votes of reward to various persons for past services. The better observance of the Lord's Day was one of the subjects of discussion. Amid the minor or more private business one notes a great many naturalizings of foreigners resident in England, or of persons of English descent born abroad or otherwise requiring to be naturalized. Theodore Haak and his family, Dr. Lewis Du Moulin, a number of Lawrences and Carews, and a daughter of the poet Waller, are among the scores included in such Naturalization Bills. Through all this, hardly a week, of course, without an order to Dr. Owen, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Caryl, Nye, Sterry, Manton, or some other leading divine, to preach a special sermon, with thanks after for his "great pains," and generally a request that the sermon should be printed. On the whole, Speaker Widdrington had no light post. Indeed, in January 1656-7, the House, perceiving him to be very ill and weak, insisted on his taking leave of absence, and appointed Whitlocke as his substitute. Whitlocke acted as pro-Speaker, he tells us, from January 27 to Feb. 18, with great acceptance and rapid despatch of business. On the last of these days, however, Widdrington, though at the risk of his life, reappeared and resumed duty. A fee of £5, it seems, was due to the Speaker from every person naturalized by bill, and all such fees would have gone to Whitlocke had Widdrington remained absent. The loss to Whitlocke was made up handsomely by the House in a vote of £2000, besides repayment of £500 he had expended over his allowance in his Swedish embassy, and thanks for his many eminent services.1
1: Commons Journals over period and for dates named; Whitlocke, IV. 280-286.
About a fortnight after the Parliament had met (Oct. 2), there had come splendid news from Blake and Montague. A Spanish fleet from the West Indies, with the ex-Viceroy of Peru and his family on board, and a vast treasure of silver, had been attacked in Cadiz bay by six English frigates under the command of Captain Stayner. Two of the ships had been taken, two burnt and sunk (the ex-Viceroy, his wife, and eldest daughter, perishing most tragically in the flames), and there had been a great capture of silver. The rejoicing in London was great, and it was renewed a month afterwards by the actual arrival of the silver from Portsmouth, a long train of waggon-loads through the open streets, on its way to the Mint, Admiral Montague himself had come with it. He was in the House Nov. 4, welcomed with thanks and applauses to his place for a while among the legislators.1
1: Commons Journals of dates given, and Godwin, IV, 300-303.
Legislative work being back in the hands of a Parliament, the Protector and his Council had confined themselves meanwhile to matters of administration, war, and diplomacy. Vane had been released from his imprisonment in the Isle of Wight by order of Council, Dec. 11, and permitted to return to Lincolnshire; and there had been other relaxations of the severities attending the opening of the Parliament. There had been an order of Council (Oct. 2) for the release of imprisoned Quakers at Exeter, Dorchester, Colchester, and other places, with instructions to the Major-Generals in the respective districts to see the order carried out and the fines of the poor people discharged. The business of the Piedmontese Protestants still occupied the Council, and there were letters to various foreign powers. Of new diplomatic arrangements of the Protector about this time, and through the whole session of the Parliament, account will be more conveniently taken hereafter; but Ambassador Lockhart's temporary presence in London, and his frequent colloquies with the Protector over French affairs, Spanish affairs, the movements of Charles II abroad, a rumoured dissension between Charles II. and his brother the Duke of York, and Mazarin's astute intimacy with all, are worthy of remark even now. It was on Dec. 10, 1656, that Lockhart received from his Highness the honour of knighthood at Whitehall; and on Feb. 3, 1656-7, it was settled by his Highness and the Council that Lockhart's allowance thenceforward in his Embassy should be £100 a week, i.e, about £18,000 a year in present value. Lockhart's real post being in Paris, his attendance in Parliament can have been but brief. His fellow-Scotsman, Swinton of Swinton, also gave but brief attendance. The Protector had taken the opportunity of Swinton's visit to London to show him special attention, and to promote in the Council certain very substantial recognitions of his adhesion to the Commonwealth when other Scots abhorred it, and of his good services in Scotland to it and the Protectorate since. But, as his proper place was in Edinburgh, it was ordered, Dec. 25, 1656, that he, and his fellow-members of the Scottish Council, Major-General Charles Howard and Colonel Adrian Scroope, should return thither. This was the more necessary because Lord Broghill did not mean to return to Scotland, the air of which did not suit him, but preferred employment for the future either in England or in his native Ireland. Broghill's Presidency in Scotland had now, indeed, virtually ceased, and the administration there, with the difficult steering between the Resolutioners and the Protesters of the Kirk, had been left to Monk and the rest. Nay, as we know, the hearing of that vital Scottish question had been transferred to London. Sharp, who had come to London in Broghill's train as agent for the Resolutioners, "presently got access to the Protector" and "was well liked of and accepted." But the Marquis of Argyle had weight enough yet to stop any concession to him till the other party had been heard. Accordingly, in October, 1656, a Mr. James Simson, minister of Airth, had been sent up by the Protesters, to be followed, more effectively, in January, by Mr. James Guthrie himself, Principal Gillespie of Glasgow, and three elders, of whom one was Warriston. There had been a conference and debate between Sharp and these Protesters before Cromwell, three of his Council being present, and Owen, Lockyer, Manton, and Ashe attending as representative English divines; but his Highness had not yet made up his mind. The rumour in Scotland was that Sharp was likely to succeed, and that he had driven Warriston and Gillespie very hard in the Conference, and contrived, in particular, to make Warriston, in self-defence, betray some awkward secrets. One finds, however, that Principal Gillespie was invited to preach twice before the Parliament, and thanked for his sermons, and that he had influence enough to move in the Council a suit in the interests of the University of Glasgow. Though Sharp, as Baillie advised him, was "supping with a long spoon," Cromwell had probably taken estimate of him.1
1: Council Order Books of dates given, and of others (e.g. Nov. 4 and Dec. 2, 1656, and Jan. 12 and Feb. 12, 1656-7); Merc. Pol. No. 340 (Dec. 11-18, 1656); Life of Robert Blair, 329-331; Baillie, III. 328-341.