1: Carlyle, III. 329-347.
The appeal to the Commons was in vain. After three or four more meetings, they resumed, Jan. 29, the subject of the answer to be returned to the message of the 22nd from the Other House. By a vote of eighty-four to seventy-eight they resolved to go into Grand Committee on the subject. This having been done, they resolved, Jan. 30, "That the first thing to be debated shall be the Appellation to be given to the persons to whom the answer shall be made." On this one point there was a protracted debate of four days, the oppositionists insisting that the appellation should be simply "The Other House," as in the Petition and Advice, and the Oliverians contending that that was no name at all, that it had been employed in the Petition and Advice only as a blank to be afterwards filled up, and that the proper name would be "The House of Lords." In one of two divisions on Feb. 3 the votes were eighty-seven against eighty-six; in the other they were ninety-three against eighty-seven. These divisions, however, were merely incidental, and the debate was still going on fiercely on Thursday, Feb. 4. Scott had spoken and was trying to speak again in defiance of rule, with Hasilrig backing him, when "Mr. Speaker informed the House that the Usher of the Black Rod was at the door with a message from his Highness." Hasilrig seems to have been still on his feet when the Black Rod, having been admitted, delivered his message: "Mr. Speaker, His Highness is in the Lords House, and desires to speak with you." Thither they adjourned, and there his Highness briefly addressed the two Houses once again (Speech XVIII.). Or rather he addressed both Houses only through about half of his speech; for, at a particular point, he turned deliberately to the Commons and proceeded thus: "I do not speak to these Gentlemen, or Lords, or whatsoever you will call them; I speak not this to them, but to you. You advised me to come into this place [the Second Protectorship], to be in a capacity by your advice. Yet, instead of owning a thing, some must have I know not what; and you have not only disjointed yourselves but the whole Nation, which is in likelihood of running into more confusion in these fifteen or sixteen days that you have sat than it hath been from the rising of the last session to this day. Through the intention of devising a Commonwealth again, that some people might be the men that might rule all! And they are endeavouring to engage the Army to carry that thing. And hath that man been true to this Nation, whosoever he be, especially that hath taken an oath, thus to prevaricate? These designs have been made among the Army, to break and divide us. I speak this in the presence of some of the Army: that these things have not been according to God, nor according to truth, pretend what you will. These things tend to nothing else but the playing of the King of Scots' game (if I may so call him); and I think myself bound before God to do what I can to prevent it. That which I told you in the Banqueting House was true: that there are preparations of force to invade us, God is my witness, it hath been confirmed to me since, not a day ago, that the King of Scots hath an Army at the water's side, ready to be shipped for England. I have it from those who have been eyewitnesses of it. And, while it is doing, there are endeavours from some who are not far from this place to stir up the people of this town into a tumulting—what if I said into a rebellion? And I hope I shall make it appear to be no better, if God assist me. It hath been not only your endeavour to pervert the Army while you have been sitting, and to draw them to state the question about a Commonwealth; but some of you have been listing of persons, by commission of Charles Stuart, to join with any insurrection that may be made. And what is like to come upon this, the enemy being ready to invade us, but even present blood and confusion? And, if this be so, I do assign it to this cause: your not assenting to what you did invite me to by your Petition and Advice, as that which might prove the Settlement of the Nation. And, if this be the end of your sitting, and this be your carriage, I think it high time that an end be put to your sitting. And I DO DISSOLVE THIS PARLIAMENT. And let God be judge between you and me!"1
1: Commons Journals of dates; and Carlyle, III. 348-353.
Thus, after a second session of only sixteen days, the Second Parliament of the Protectorate was at an end. Cromwell's explanation of his reasons for dissolving it is perfectly accurate. Through the first session the Parliament, as a Single House Parliament, had, by the exclusion of about ninety of those returned to it, been a thoroughly Oliverian body, and its chief work had been a reconstitution of the Protectorate on a definite basis; but through the second session this Parliament, though nominally the same, had been split into two Houses, the House of Lords wholly Oliverian, but the House of Commons, by the loss of a number of its former members and the readmission of the excluded, turned into an Anti-Oliverian conclave. Fourteen folio pages of the Commons Journals are the only remaining formal records of the short and unfortunate Session. Oliver's Lords can have had little more to do than meet and look at each other.
There was to be no Parliament more while Cromwell lived. For seven months onwards from Feb. 4, 1657-8, he was to govern, one may say, more alone than ever, more as a sovereign, and with all his energies in performance of the sovereignty more tremendously on the strain.
There was still, of course, the Council, now essentially a Privy Council, meeting twice or thrice a week, or sometimes on special summons, and with this novelty in the public style and title of the councillors, that those of them who had been in the Upper House of the late Parliament retained the name of "Lords." Lord President Lawrence, Lord Richard Cromwell, Lord Fleetwood, Lord Montague, Lord Commissioner Fiennes, Lord Desborough, Lord Viscount Lisle, the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Rous, Lord Skippon, Lord Pickering (alias "The Lord Chamberlain"), Lord Strickland, Lord Wolseley, Lord Sydenham, Lord Jones (alias "Mr. Comptroller"), and Mr. Secretary Thurloe: such would have been the minute of a complete sederunt of the Council when, it resumed duty after the dissolution of the Parliament. There never was such a complete sederunt: ten out of the sixteen was the average attendance, rising sometimes to twelve. Occasionally Cromwell came to one of their meetings; but generally they transacted business among themselves to his order, and communicated with him privately. A few of the Councillors were more closely in his confidence than the rest; Whitlocke, though not of the Council, was often consulted about special affairs; and the man-of-all-work, closeted with his Highness daily, was Mr. Secretary Thurloe. His Highness had, moreover, a private secretary, Mr. William Malyn, who had been with him already for several years.1
1: Council Order Books from Feb. 1857-8 onwards; Thurloe, II. 224.
As Cromwell had intimated in his Dissolution Speech, his first labour after the dissolution was to attack that vast complication of dangers of which he had already sure knowledge, and which he declared to have been caused, or brought to a head, by the wretched conduct of the Commons through their sixteen days of session, and by the positive treason of some of their number. He had described the dangers as gathering from two quarters, though they were already interrelated and would run together at last. There was "the King of Scots' game," or the plot of a Royalist commotion in conjunction with a threatened invasion of the Spanish-Stuartist Army; and there was the design of a great insurrection of Old Commonwealth's men for a subversion of the Protectorate and a return to the pure Single-House Republic. Of the first danger he had said, "I think myself bound before God to do what I can to prevent it"; the second he had denounced as rebellion, saying, "I hope I shall make it appear to be no better, if God assist me." For three or four months he was to be engaged in making good these words; but he had begun already. On February 6, at a great meeting of the Army-officers in the Banqueting House, he had discoursed to them impressively for two hours, abashing two or three that had been tampered with, and receiving from the rest assurances of their eternal fidelity. Ludlow says that, for several nights successively, before or after this meeting, Cromwell himself took the inspection of the watch among the soldiers at Whitehall.1
1: 2 Ludlow, 598-600; Godwin. IV. 496-7.