The facts which Cromwell recalled were embarrassing; his voice was full of influence over his old companions. Several wavered in their resistance; a compromise was arrived at. It was agreed that the question of the title of king should be suspended until the end of the debate. Upon this condition the officers accepted the two Houses of Parliament, and the right of the Protector to designate his successor; they undertook to allow the discussion to follow its course peacefully. On the 25th of March, the House voted, by a hundred and twenty-three votes against sixty-two, the first clause of the project which had been reserved until that day: "That your Highness will be pleased to assume the name, style, title, dignity, and office of King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the respective dominions and territories thereunto belonging, and to exercise the same according to the laws of those nations."
On the 25th of March, 1657, Cromwell received the House at Whitehall, in that banqueting-hall which eight years beforehand, Charles I. had crossed between two rows of soldiers on his way to the scaffold. "I am but a servant," said the speaker, Widdrington, "and I have not to express my own thoughts, but to declare what Parliament has commanded. I am like a gardener who plucks flowers in the garden of his master and makes therewith a nosegay. I will only offer to your Highness what I have gathered in the garden of Parliament." And he detailed the eighteen articles of the "humble petition and advice," dwelling upon the impossibility of mutilating it by rejecting one article to accept the other.
Cromwell listened gravely and in silence; he asked time for reflection. On the 3rd of April, he begged Parliament to send delegates to him to receive his reply. "You do necessitate my answer to be categorical," he said, "and you have left me without a liberty of choice save as to all. I should be very brutish did I not acknowledge the exceeding high honor and respect you have had for me in this paper, and by you I return Parliament through you my grateful acknowledgments. I must need say that that may be fit for you to offer which may not be fit for me to undertake. I have been able to attain no further than this, that seeing the way is hedged up so as it is to me, and I cannot accept the things offered unless I accept all, I have not been able to find it my duty to God and to you to undertake this charge under that title. And if Parliament be so resolved, 'for the whole paper or none of it,' it will not be fit for me to use any inducement to you to alter their resolution. … That is all that I have to say."
The Parliament understood the perplexity and vagueness of this reply. It was accustomed to unravel and follow the desire of Cromwell in the labyrinths of his deeds and words. It determined that it would persist in its petition, while asking officially to expound its motives before the Protector.
Cromwell knew, as well as Parliament, what was wanting to the stability of the government of England. Lord Broghill summed up the thought of his colleagues as well as that of the Protector when he said, "It is by the title of king, and never by any other, that our ancient laws designate the head magistracy; now ancient foundations, when they are good, are better than new ones, were they equally good; that which is confirmed by time and experience has afforded proof of its worth, and carries with it much more authority."
In reality, Parliament did not speak to Cromwell nor Cromwell to Parliament. They were both addressing themselves to a public who were not in Whitehall—to the dissentient but moderate Republicans, whom they hoped to bring over to their views; to the whole country, which they wished to associate with the foundation of a new dynasty in order that it might compel the ancient parties to accept it.
The conferences therefore continued. Cromwell listened to the exhortations of Parliament with evident satisfaction, mingled, however, with a great perturbation of mind; he was not a man of simple and fixed ideas, who marched steadfastly towards his object. When any one addressed him, his powerful imagination caused to pass rapidly before his eyes the most hidden recesses as well as the most diverse phases of his position; he saw all the near or remote consequences, either probable or only possible, of the act which he was meditating. The matter progressed slowly, and Parliament began to evince some ill-humor. It was quite willing to assist the Protector in making him king, but not to present the appearance of doing it in spite of himself, thus assuming all the responsibility of the re-establishment of the monarchy. All the amendments, however, being adopted, the petition was again presented to the Protector. He contented himself with glancing at the last sentences, saying hurriedly and in a low tone of voice that, the document requiring some consideration, he could not yet appoint a day; as soon as he should have determined upon one, he would let the House know of it; it would be as soon as was possible, he doing all he could to expedite it.