[Sidenote a: A.D. 1656. Dec. 6.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1656. Dec. 16.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1656. Dec. 18.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1656. Dec. 27.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1657. Jan. 13.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1657. Jan. 17.]
occasion they attended him bareheaded; they kissed and sucked his wounds; and they chanted with him passages from the Scriptures. On his return to London[a] he was committed to solitary confinement, without pen, ink, or paper, or fire, or candle, and with no other sustenance than what he might earn by his own industry. Here the delusion under which he laboured gradually wore away; he acknowledged that his mind had been in darkness, the consequence and punishment of spiritual pride; and declared that, inasmuch as he had given advantage to the evil spirit, he took shame to himself. By "the rump parliament" he was afterwards discharged; and the society of Friends, by whom he had been disowned, admitted him again on proof of his repentance. But his sufferings had injured his health. In 1660 he was found in a dying state in a field in Huntingdonshire, and shortly afterwards expired.[1]
While the parliament thus spent its time in the prosecution of an offence which concerned it not, Cromwell anxiously revolved in his own mind a secret project of the first importance to himself and the country. To his ambition, it was not sufficient that he actually possessed the supreme authority, and exercised it with more despotic sway than any of his legitimate predecessors; he still sought to mount a step higher, to encircle his brows with a diadem, and to be addressed with the title of majesty. It could not be, that vanity alone induced him to hazard the attachment of his friends for the sake of mere parade and empty sound. He had rendered the more modest title of protector as great and as formidable as that of
[Footnote 1: Journals, Dec. 5-17; 1659, Sept. 8. Sewel, 260-273, 283, 393.
State Trials, v. 810-842. Merc. Polit. No. 34.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. Feb. 22.]
king, and, though uncrowned, had treated on a footing of equality with the proudest of the crowned heads in Europe. It is more probable that he was led by considerations of interest. He knew that the nation was weary of change; he saw with what partiality men continued to cling to the old institutions; and he, perhaps, trusted that the establishment of an hereditary monarchy, with a house of peers, though under a new dynasty, and with various modifications, might secure the possession of the crown, not only to himself, but also to his posterity. However that may be, he now made the acquisition of the kingly dignity the object of his policy. For this purpose he consulted first with Thurloe, and afterwards[a] with St. John and Pierpoint;[1] and the manner in which he laboured to gratify his ambition strikingly displays that deep dissimulation and habitual hypocrisy, which form the distinguishing traits of his character.
The first opportunity of preparing the public mind for this important alteration was furnished by the recent proceedings against Naylor, which had provoked considerable discontent, not on account of the severity of the punishment (for rigid notions of religion had subdued the common feelings of humanity), but on account of the judicial authority exercised by the house—an authority which appeared subversive of the national liberties. For of what use was the right of trial, if the parliament could set aside the ordinary courts of law at its pleasure, and inflict arbitrary punishment for any supposed offence without the usual forms of inquiry? As long as the question was before the house, Cromwell remained silent; but when the first part of the judgment had been executed
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, v. 694; vi. 20, 37.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1656. Dec. 9.]
on the unfortunate sufferer, he came forward in quality of guardian of the public rights, and concluded a letter to the speaker[a] with these words: "We, being intrusted in the present government on behalf of the people of these nations, and not knowing how far such proceedings (wholly without us) may extend in the consequences of it, do desire that the house will let us know the ground and reason whereupon they have proceeded." This message struck the members with amazement. Few among them were willing to acknowledge] that they had exceeded their real authority; all dreaded to enter into a contest with the protector. The discussion lasted three days; every expedient that had been suggested was ultimately rejected; and the debate was adjourned to a future day,[c] when, with the secret connivance of Cromwell, no motion was made to resume it.[1] He had already obtained his object. The thoughts of men had been directed to the defects of the existing constitution, and to the necessity of establishing checks on the authority of the house, similar to those which existed under the ancient government.