One matter In which there had been an approach to disagreement between the Parliament and the Protector was the famous Case of James Nayler;—Quakerism and its extravagancies were irritating the sober part of the nation unspeakably, and this maddest of all the Quakers, on account of the outrageous "blasphemies" of his recent Song-of-Simon procession through the west of England—repeated at Bristol after his release from Exeter jail—had been selected by Parliament for an example. On the 31st of October, 1856, a large committee was appointed on his case; and on the 5th of December, Nayler and others having been brought prisoners to London meanwhile, the report of the Committee was made, and there began a debate on the case, which was protracted through ten sittings, Nayler himself brought once or twice to the bar. It was easily resolved that he had been "guilty of horrid blasphemy" and was a "grand impostor and great seducer of the people": the difficult question was as to his punishment. On the 16th of December it was carried but by ninety-six votes to eighty-two that it should not be death, and, after some faint farther argument on the side of mercy, this was the sentence: "That James Nayler be set on the pillory, with his head in the pillory, in the New Palace, Westminster, during the space of two hours, on Thursday next, and shall be whipped by the hangman through the streets from Westminster to the Old Exchange, London, there likewise to be set on the pillory, with his head in the pillory, for the space of two hours, between the hours of eleven and one on Saturday next—in each of the said places wearing a paper containing an inscription of his crimes: and that at the Old Exchange his tongue shall be bored through with a hot iron; and that he be there also stigmatized in the forehead with the letter B: And that he be afterwards sent to Bristol, and conveyed into and through the said city on a horse bare-ridged, with his face backwards, and there also publicly whipped the next market-day after he comes thither: And that from thence he be committed to prison in Bridewell, London, and there restrained from the society of all people, and kept to hard labour, till he be released by Parliament, and during that time be debarred from the use of pen, ink, and paper, and have no relief but what he earns by his daily labour." Though petitions for clemency had already been presented to Parliament by some very orthodox people, the first part of this atrocious sentence was duly executed Dec. 18. Then came more earnest petitions both to Parliament and the Protector, with the effect of a respite of the next part from the 20th to the 27th; between which dates this letter from the Protector was read in the House: "O.P. Right Trusty and Well-beloved, We greet you well. Having taken notice of a judgment lately given by yourselves against one James Nayler, Although we detest and abhor the giving or occasioning the least countenance to persons of such opinions and practices, or who are guilty of the crimes commonly imputed to the said person: Yet, We, being intrusted in the present Government on behalf of the People of these Nations, and not knowing how far such Proceeding, entered into wholly without Us, may extend in the consequence of it, Do desire that the House will let Us know the grounds and reasons whereupon they have proceeded." Two things are here to be perceived. One is that Cromwell did not approve of the course taken with Nayler. The other, and more important, is that he regarded this action of the House, without his consent, as an intrenchment on that part of his prerogative which concerned Toleration. He thought himself, by the constitution of his Protectorate, entrusted with a certain guardianship of this principle, even against Parliament; and he did not know how far Nayler's case might be made a precedent for religious persecutions. What may have been the exact reply to Cromwell from the House we do not know; but the House was not in a mood to spare Nayler. He had not satisfied the clergymen sent to confer with him. Accordingly, on the 27th, a motion to respite him for another week having been lost by 113 to 59, the second part of his punishment was inflicted to the letter; after which he was removed to Bristol to receive the rest. All that one can say is that, though Cromwell was far from pleased with the business, and even thought it a horrible one, he did not feel that he could at that time make it the occasion of an actual quarrel with the Parliament.1
1: Commons Journals of dates; Carlyle III, 213-215; Sewel's History of the People called Quakers (ed. 1834) I. 179-207.
Another matter in which a disagreement might have been feared between Cromwell and his Parliament was that of The Major-Generalships. This "invention" of Cromwell's for the police of England and Wales generally, and specially for the collection of the Decimation or Militia Tax from the Royalists, had been so successful that he had congratulated himself on It in his opening speech to the Parliament. He, doubtless, desired that Parliament should adopt and continue it. On the 7th of January, 1656-7, accordingly, there was read for the first time "a Bill for the continuing and assessing of a Tax for the paying and maintaining of the Militia forces in England and Wales," i.e. for prolonging Cromwell's Decimation Tax of 1655, and virtually the whole machinery of the Major-Generalships. That there would be serious opposition in the House had been foreseen since Dec. 25, when there had been two divisions on the question of leave to bring in the Bill, and leave had been obtained only by eighty-eight votes to sixty-three. Among the opponents were Whitlocke and the other lawyers, all those indeed who wanted to terminate the time of "arbitrariness," and objected to a tax now on old political delinquents as contrary to the Parliamentary Act of Oblivion of Feb. 1651-2. On the other hand, the Bill was strongly supported by Lambert. Fiennes, Lisle, Pickering, Sydenham, other members of Council, and the Major-Generals themselves. It was, in fact, a Government Bill, Nevertheless, after a protracted debate of six days, the second reading of the Bill was negatived Jan. 29 by 121 to 78, and the Bill absolutely rejected by 124 to 88. Cromwell himself had helped to bring about this result. Much as he liked his "invention," he had perceived, in the course of the debate, that it must be given up; and he had given hints to that effect. The House, in short, had understood that they were left to their own free will. And so the Major-Generalships disappeared, the police of the country reverted to the ordinary magistracy, and Cromwell was to trust to Parliament for necessary supplies in more regular ways.1
1: Commons Journals of dates; Godwin, IV. 327-331.
What drew the Parliament and the Protector more closely together about this time was the explosion of a new plot against the Protector's life. At the centre of the plot was that "wretched creature, an apostate from religion and all honesty," of whom Cromwell had spoken in his opening speech as going between Charles II. and the King of Spain, and negotiating for a Spanish invasion of England. In other words, he was Edward Sexby, once a stout trooper and agitator in the Parliamentarian army (Vol. III. p. 534), afterwards Captain and even Colonel in the same, but since then one of the fiercest Anabaptist malcontents. He had been in the Wildman plot of Feb. 1654-5, but had then escaped abroad; and since then his occupation had been as described by Cromwell,—now in Flanders, now in Madrid, shuttling alliance between Spain and the Stuarts. But, though a Spanish invasion of England to restore the Stuarts was his great game, an assassination of Cromwell anyhow, whether without a Spanish invasion or in anticipation of it, was nearest to his heart. Actually he had been in London just before the meeting of the Parliament, trying to arrange for such "fiddling things"—so Cromwell had called them—as shooting him in the Park or blowing him up in his chamber at Whitehall. Before Thurloe had traces of him, he had again decamped to Flanders; but he had left a substitute in Miles Sindercombe, an old leveller and mutineer of 1647, but since then a quarter-master in Monk's Army in Scotland, and dismissed for his complicity in the Overton project. Sexby had left Sindercombe £1600; and with this money Sindercombe had been again tampering with Cromwell's guard, taking a house at Hammersmith convenient for shots at Cromwell's coach when he drove to Hampton Court, and buying gunpowder and combustibles for a nearer attempt in Whitehall. He had been, seen in the Chapel at Whitehall on the evening of January 8, and that night the sentinel on duty smelt fire just in time to extinguish a slow-match that was to explode a mass of blazing chemicals at midnight. All Whitehall having been roused, the Protector with the rest, information led at once to Sindercombe. He was arrested in his lodging, and sent to the Tower; and, his trial having followed, Feb. 9, he was convicted on evidence given by accomplices, and doomed to execution on the 14th. In the night preceding he was found dead in his bed, having poisoned himself. He had left intimation that he was under no concern about his immortal soul, having passed out of any form of religion recognising such an entity, and become a Materialist or Soul-sleeper. Meanwhile his plot had raised a ferment of new loyalty round the Protector. On the 19th of January, when Thurloe made a formal disclosure to the House of all the particulars of the plot, a general thanksgiving throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, was ordered, and it was resolved that the whole House should wait upon his Highness "to congratulate with his Highness on this great mercy and deliverance." The interview was on January the 23rd, in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, when Speaker Widdrington made the address for the House, and Cromwell replied in a most affectionate speech (Speech VI.). The thanksgiving was on Feb. 20; on which day Principal Gillespie of Glasgow and Mr. Warren had the honour of preaching the special sermons before the House in St. Margaret's, Westminster. The day was wound up by a noble dinner in Whitehall, to which the whole House had been invited by the Protector, followed by a concert, vocal and instrumental, in the part of the Palace called the Cockpit.1
1: Commons Journals of dates given, and of Feb. 18; Carlyle, III. 204-211; Godwin, IV. 331-333; Merc. Pol. No. 349 (Feb. 12-19, 1656-7); Whitlocke, IV. 286; Parl. Hist. III. 1490.
Three days after the great dinner in Whitehall, i.e. on Monday, Feb. 23, 1656-7, there was an incident in the House which turned all the future proceedings of this Second Parliament of the Protectorate into a new channel. It is thus entered in the Journals:—
" ... Sir Christopher Pack [Ex-Mayor of London, knighted by Cromwell, Sept. 25, 1655, and now one of the members for the City] presented a Paper to the House, declaring it was somewhat come to his hand tending to the Settlement of the Nation and of Liberty and Property, and prayed it might be received and read; and, it being much controverted whether the same should be read without farther opening [preliminary explanation] thereof, the Question being propounded That this Paper, offered by Sir Christopher Pack, be further opened by him before it is read, and the Question being put That this Question be now put, it passed in the Negative. The Question being propounded That this Paper, offered by Sir Christopher Pack, be now read, and the Question being put That that Question be now put, the House was divided. The Noes went forth:—Colonel Sydenham, Mr. Robinson, Tellers for the Noes—with the Noes 54; Sir Charles Wolseley, Colonel Fitzjames, Tellers for the Yeas—with the Yeas 144. So it passed in the Affirmative. And, the main Question being put, it was Resolved That this Paper, offered by Sir Christopher Pack, be now read. The said Paper was read accordingly, and was entitled 'The Humble Address and Remonstrance of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, now assembled in the Parliament of this Commonwealth.'"1
1: Commons Journals of date.
The debate on the Paper was protracted to the evening "a candle" having been ordered in for the purpose; and it was then adjourned to the next day. In fact, for the next four months, or through the whole remainder of the session, the House was to continue the debate, or questions arising out of it, and to do little else. For, on the 24th of February, it was resolved by a majority of 100 to 44 (Lambert and Strickland tellers for the Minority) that the paper should be taken up and discussed in its successive parts, "beginning at the first Article after the Preamble;" and, though an attempt was made next day to throw the subject into Grand Committee, that was defeated by 118 to 63. In evidence of the momentousness of the occasion, a whole Parliamentary day was set apart for "seeking the Lord" upon it, with prayers and sermons by Dr. Owen and others; and, when the House met again after that ceremonial (Feb. 28), it was resolved that no vote passed on any part of the Paper should be binding till all should be completed.1