Charles II.
Chapter XXIX.
The Restoration Of The Stuarts (1659-1660).
The downfall of the Protector was accomplished, although he still resided at Whitehall. The question was that of founding a government. The leaders of the army looked with little favor upon the Republic; they had strongly supported and participated in the tyranny of Cromwell, and they dreaded the increasing progress of the Royalists; it was against them that they had allied themselves with the old Republican leaders in order to submit to their yoke a phantom Protector. It was also in opposition to them that they resolved to exterminate all that remained of the Republic, the remnants of the Long Parliament expelled by Cromwell in April, 1653.
It was a mere handful of men, the majority already old and wearied by political struggles, who thus assembled together on the 7th of May, 1659, and returned to that place of assemblage from which they had been so roughly ejected; forty-two members only were there, their former speaker, Lenthall, at their head. The latter had for a long time hesitated, wishing to preserve what he already called his peerage in the new House of Lords of Cromwell; but when the line of members passed near his door, he joined them, being unable to resist the desire to see once more the hall of the Long Parliament. The general officers awaited them at the door, congratulating them as they passed in, and promising to live and die with them.
Scarcely had they been restored and placed once more in possession of the government by the leaders of the army, when the Republicans of the Long Parliament found themselves confronted with legal difficulties. The Presbyterians, excluded from the House of Commons in 1648, claimed their seats; fourteen of them presented themselves at the door in the name of their companions in misfortune: there were two hundred and thirteen of them. The Republicans peremptorily repelled them. Prynne contrived to slip into the Hall, and he remained imperturbably in his place, notwithstanding the insults of Haslerig and Vane. The sitting was declared closed. Prynne was the last to leave; but when he returned in the evening every outlet was guarded, and placards posted up in all parts confirmed the exclusion already pronounced against all members who had been strangers since 1648 to the sittings of the Long Parliament. "A worse and more oppressive war against the Commons," said Prynne, "than was ever waged against them by the beheaded king and the Cavaliers."
Weak in appearance and in reality, the Republican chiefs were courageous and sincere, profoundly devoted to their cause, and irrevocably involved in its fate. They hastened to strike another blow at the shadow of the Protectorate, which was still retained by Cromwell. Haslerig intimated to him orders to quit Whitehall. Richard received the message and the messenger with scornful haughtiness. He lent ear to the solicitations of the Cavaliers, who were secretly assiduous in their attentions to him as well as to his brother Henry, who was still Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and powerful in the midst of his army. The Protector was moreover burdened with debts. … Whitehall afforded him a place of refuge against his creditors. It was only six weeks later, when Parliament guaranteed him against any proceedings, that Richard at length consented to abandon the remains of his greatness. "My past conduct," he wrote to Parliament, "has afforded evidence, I think, of my submission to the will of God, and also of how far I esteem the peace of my country beyond my own interests. … Counting, like all other men, upon the protection of the present government, I consider myself bound to live quietly under its laws, and to do whatever depends on me in order that the persons upon whom I may have some influence may do likewise." Parliament took charge of all his debts, and granted, on the 16th of July, to "Richard Cromwell, eldest son of the late Lord General Cromwell," a yearly income of £10,000 sterling. For this price Richard consented to quit Whitehall and Hampton Court. As his personal effects were being carried away, he specially recommended to his attendants two old trunks lying in his apartment. One of his friends asked him what they contained. "Nothing less," said Richard, "than the life and fortune of all the good people of England." The two cases were full of the addresses which, on his accession, had come to him from all parts, placing at his disposal the fortune and the life of the whole nation, of which his government, they affirmed, was the salvation.
The retirement of Henry Cromwell was less disputed, if not less bitter; he even preserved his dignity in the matter. Being recalled to England, on the 7th of June, by Parliament, which had decided that Ireland should be governed by five commissioners, he sent his formal resignation on the 15th of June. "I adhere," he said, "to the present government, although I cannot promise it the devotion which others may honestly bring to it. … I am not fitted to serve you in the construction of the edifice which you wish to raise upon a new basis. But, inasmuch as I can lend myself to nothing which should detract in any degree from the merit and glory of my father, I thank the Lord who has preserved me from succumbing to a temptation with which I have often been beset, that of deserting the cause for which my father lived and died."