days almost three hundred names were subscribed. The Stanch republicans refused; yet the sequel showed that their exclusion did not give to the court that ascendancy in the house which had been anticipated.[1]
About this time an extraordinary accident occurred. Among the presents which Cromwell had received from foreign princes, were six Friesland coach-horses from the duke of Oldenburg. One day,[a] after he had dined with Thurloe under the shade in the park, the fancy took him to try the mettle of the horses. The secretary was compelled to enter the carriage; the protector, forgetful of his station, mounted the box. The horses at first appeared obedient to the hand of the new coachman; but the too frequent application of the lash drove them into a gallop, and the protector was suddenly precipitated from his seat. At first, he lay suspended by the pole with his leg entangled in the harness; and the explosion of a loaded pistol in one of his pockets added to the fright and the rapidity of the horses; but a fortunate jerk extricated his foot from his shoe, and he fell under the body of the carriage without meeting with injury from the wheels. He was immediately taken up by his guards, who followed at full speed, and conveyed to Whitehall; Thurloe leaped from the door of the carriage, and escaped with a sprained ancle and some severe bruises. Both were confined to their chambers for a long time;
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, ii. 606. Whitelock, 605. Journals, Sept. 5-18. Fleetwood, from Dublin, asks Thurloe, "How cam it to passe, that this last teste was not at the first sitting of the house?" (ii. 620). See in Archæol. xxiv. 39, a letter showing that several, who refused to subscribe at first through motives of conscience, did so later. This was in consequence of a declaration that the recognition did not comprehend all the forty-two articles in "the instrument," but only what concerned the government by a single person and successive parliaments.—See Journals, Sept. 14.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. Sept. 24.]
but by many, their confinement was attributed as much to policy as to indisposition. The Cavaliers diverted themselves by prophesying that, as his first fall had been from a coach, the next would be from a cart: to the public, the explosion of the pistol revealed the secret terrors which haunted his mind, that sense of insecurity, those fears of assassination, which are the usual meed of inordinate and successful ambition.[1]
The force so lately put on the parliament, and the occasion of that force, had opened the eyes of the most devoted among his adherents. His protestations of disinterestedness, his solemn appeals to Heaven in testimony of his wish to lead the life of a private gentleman, were contrasted with his aspiring and arbitrary conduct; and the house, though deprived of one-fourth of its number, still contained a majority jealous of his designs and anxious to limit his authority. The accident which had placed his life in jeopardy naturally led to the consideration of the probable consequences of his death; and, to sound the disposition of the members, the question of the succession was repeatedly, though not formally, introduced. The remarks which it provoked afforded little encouragement to his hopes; yet, when the previous arrangements had been made, and all the dependants of the government had been mustered, Lambert, having in a long and studied speech detailed the evils of elective, the benefits of hereditary, succession, moved[a] that the office of protector should be limited to the family of Oliver Cromwell, according to the known law of inheritance. To the surprise and the mortification
[Footnote 1: Heath, 363. Thurloe, ii. 652, 653, 672. Ludlow, ii. 63.
Vaughan, i. 69.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. Oct. 13.]
of the party, the motion was negatived by a division of two hundred against eighty voices; and it was resolved that, on the death of the protector, his successor should be chosen by the parliament if it were sitting, and by the council in the absence of parliament.[1]
This experiment had sufficiently proved the feelings of the majority. Aware, however, of their relative weakness, they were careful to give Cromwell no tangible cause of offence. If they appointed committees to revise the ordinances which he had published, they affected to consider them as merely provisional regulations, supplying the place of laws till the meeting of parliament. If they examined in detail the forty-two articles of "the instrument," rejecting some, and amending others, they still withheld their unhallowed hands from those subjects which he had pronounced sacred,—the four immovable pillars on which the new constitution was built. Cromwell, on his part, betrayed no symptom of impatience; but waited quietly for the moment when he had resolved