[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 2.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Oct. 7.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Dec. 19.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. June 5.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1652. June 15.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1652. August 12.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1652. August 13.]
of permitting armed bodies to assembly and petition. He slighted the advice.[1]
Soon afterwards[a] the lord-general requested a private and confidential interview with that lawyer. So violent, he observed, was the discontent of the army, so imperious the conduct of the parliament, that it would be impossible to prevent a collision of interests, and the subsequent ruin of the good cause, unless there were established "some authority so full and so high" as to be able to check these exorbitances, and to restrain both the army and the parliament. Whitelock replied, that, for the army, his excellency had hitherto kept and would continue to keep it in due subordination; but with respect to the parliament, reliance must be placed on the good sense and virtue of the majority. To control the supreme power was legally impossible. All, even Cromwell himself, derived their authority from it. At these words the lord-general abruptly exclaimed, "What, if a man should take upon him to be king?" The commissioner answered that the title would confer no additional benefit on his excellency. By his command of the army, his ascendancy in the house, and his reputation, both at home and abroad, he already enjoyed, without the envy of the name, all the power of a king. When Cromwell insisted that the name would give security to his followers, and command the respect of the people, Whitelock rejoined, that it would change the state of the controversy between the parties, and convert a national into a personal quarrel. His friends had cheerfully fought with him to establish a republican in place of monarchical government; would they equally
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 541. Journals, 1651; Dec. 19; 1652, June 15, Aug. 12, 13.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Nov. 8.]
fight with him in favour of the house of Cromwell against the house of Stuart?[1] In conclusion, Cromwell conjured him to give his advice without disguise or qualification, and received this answer, "Make a private treaty with the son of the late king, and place him on the throne, but on conditions which shall secure to the nation its rights, and to yourself the first place beneath the throne." The general coldly observed that a matter of such importance and difficulty deserved mature consideration. They separated; and Whitelock soon discovered that he had forfeited his confidence.[2]
At length Cromwell fixed on a plan to accomplish his purpose by procuring the dissolution of the parliament, and vesting for a time the sovereign authority in a council of forty persons, with himself at their head. It was his wish to effect this quietly by the votes of parliament—his resolution to effect it by open force, if such votes were refused. Several meetings were held by the officers and members at the lodgings of the lord-general in Whitehall. St. John and a few others gave their assent; the rest, under the guidance
[Footnote 1: Henry, duke of Gloucester, and the princess Elizabeth were in England at the last king's death. In 1650 the council proposed to send the one to his brother in Scotland, and the other to her sister in Holland, allowing to each one thousand pounds per annum, as long as they should behave inoffensively.—Journals, 1650, July 24, Sept. 11. But Elizabeth died on Sept. 8 of the same year, and Henry remained under the charge of Mildmay, governor of Carisbrook Castle, till a short time after this conference, when Cromwell, as if he looked on the young prince as a rival, advised his tutor Lovell, to ask permission to convey him to his sister, the princess of Orange. It was granted, with the sum of five hundred pounds to defray the expense of the journey.—Leicester's Journal, 103. Heath, 331. Clarendon, iii. 525, 526.]
[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 548-551. Were the minutes of this conversation committed to paper immediately, or after the Restoration? The credit due to them depends on this circumstance.]
of Whitelock and Widdrington, declared that the dissolution would be dangerous, and the establishment of the proposed council unwarrantable. In the mean time, the house resumed the consideration of the new representative body, and several qualifications were voted; to all of which the officers raised objections, but chiefly to the "admission of neuters," a project to strengthen the government by the introduction of the Presbyterian interest.[1] "Never," said Cromwell, "shall any of that judgment, who have deserted the good cause, be admitted to power." On the last meeting,[a] held on the 19th of April, all these points were long and warmly debated. Some of the officers declared that the parliament must be dissolved "one way or other;" but the general checked their indiscretion and precipitancy; and the assembly broke up at midnight, with an understanding that the leading men on each side should resume the subject in the morning.[2]