Richard Temple, a concealed royalist, demanded that the sixty members from Scotland and Ireland, all in the interest of the court, should withdraw.[a] It was, he said, doubtful, from the illegality of their election, whether they had any right to sit at all; it was certain that, as the representatives of other nations, they could not claim to vote on a question of such high importance to the people of England. Thus another bone of contention was thrown between the parties; eleven days were consumed before the Scottish and Irish members could obtain permission to vote, and then five more expired before the question respecting the other house was determined.[c] The new lords had little reason to be gratified with the result. They were acknowledged, indeed, as a house of parliament for the present; but there was no admission of their claim of the peerage, or of a negative voice, or of a right to sit in subsequent parliaments. The Commons consented "to transact business with them" (a new phrase of undefined meaning), pending the parliament, but with a saving of the rights of the ancient peers, who had been faithful to the cause; and, in addition, a few days later,[d] they resolved that, in the transaction of business, no superiority should be admitted in the other house, nor message received from it, unless brought by the members themselves.[1]
In these instances, the recognition of the protector, and of the two houses, the royalists, with some exceptions, had voted in favour of the court, under the impression that such a form of government was
[Footnote 1: Journals, Feb. 18, March 28, April 5, 6, 8. Thurloe, 615, 626, 633, 636, 640, 647, Clar. Pap. iii. 429, 432. Burton's Diary, iii. 317-369, 403-424, 510-594; iv. 7-41, 46-147, 163-243, 293, 351, 375.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. March 10.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1659. March 23.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1659. March 28.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1659. April 8.]
one step towards the restoration of the king. But on all other questions, whenever there was a prospect of throwing impediments in the way of the ministry, or of inflaming the discontent of the people, they zealously lent their aid to the republican party. It was proved that, while the revenue had been doubled, the expenditure had grown in a greater proportion; complaints were made of oppression, waste, embezzlement, and tyranny in the collection of the excise: the inhumanity of selling obnoxious individuals for slaves to the West India planters was severely reprobated;[1] instances of extortion were daily announced to the house by the committee of grievances; an impeachment was ordered against Boteler, accused of oppression in his office of major-general; and another threatened against Thurloe for illegal conduct in his capacity of secretary of state. But, while these proceedings awakened the hopes and gratified the resentments of the people, they at the same time spread alarm through the army; every man conscious of having abused the power of the sword began to tremble for his own safety; and an unusual ferment, the sure presage of military violence, was observable at the head-quarters of the several regiments.
[Footnote 1: Clar. Pap. iii. 429, 432. Thurloe, 647. Burton's Diary, iii. 448; iv. 255, 263, 301, 403, 429. One petition stated that seventy persons who had been apprehended on account of the Salisbury rising, after a year's imprisonment, had been sold at Barbadoes for "1550 pounds' weight of sugar a-piece, more or less, according to their working faculties." Among them were divines, officers, and gentlemen, who were represented as "grinding at the mills, attending at the furnaces, and digging in that scorching island, being bought and sold still from one planter to another, or attached as horses or beasts for the debts of their masters, being whipped at the whipping-posts as rogues at their masters' pleasure, and sleeping in sties worse than hogs in England."—Ibid. 256. See also Thurloe, i. 745.]
Hitherto the general officers had been divided between Whitehall and Wallingford House, the residences of Richard and of Fleetwood. At Whitehall, the Lord Falconberg, brother-in-law to the protector, Charles Howard, whom Oliver had created a viscount,[1] Ingoldsby, Whalley, Goffe, and a few others, formed a military council for the purpose of maintaining the ascendancy of Richard in the army. At Wallingford House, Fleetwood and his friends consulted how they might deprive him of the command, and reduce him to the situation of a civil magistrate; but now a third and more numerous council appeared at St. James's, consisting of most of the inferior officers, and guided by the secret intrigues of Lambert, who, holding no commission himself, abstained from sitting among them, and by the open influence of Desborough, a bold and reckless man, who began to despise the weak and wavering conduct of Fleetwood. Here originated the plan of a general council of officers,[a] which was followed by the adoption of "the humble representation and petition," an instrument composed in language too moderate to give reasonable cause of offence, but intended to suggest much more than it was thought prudent to express. It made no allusion to the disputed claim of the protector, or the subjects of strife between the two houses; but it complained bitterly of the contempt into which the good old cause had sunk, of the threats held out, and the prosecutions instituted, against the patriots who had distinguished themselves in its support, and of the privations to which the military were reduced
[Footnote 1: Viscount Howard, of Morpeth, July 20, 1657, afterwards created
Baron Dacre, Viscount Howard of Morpeth and earl of Carlisle, by Charles
II., 30 April, 1661.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. April 6.]
by a system that kept their pay so many months in arrear. In conclusion, it prayed for the redress of these grievances, and stated the attachment of the subscribers to the cause for which they had bled, and their readiness to stand by the protector and parliament in its defence.[1] This paper, with six hundred signatures, was presented to Richard, who received it with an air of cheerfulness, and forwarded it to the lower house. There it was read, laid on the table, and scornfully neglected. But the military leaders treated the house with equal scorn; having obtained the consent of the protector, they established a permanent council of general officers; and then, instead of fulfilling the expectations with which they had lulled his jealousy, successively voted, that the common cause was in danger, that the command of the army ought to be vested in a person possessing its confidence, and that every officer should be called upon to testify his approbation of the death of Charles I., and of the subsequent proceedings of the military; a measure levelled against the meeting at Whitehall, of which the members were charged with a secret leaning to the cause of royalty.[2] This was sufficiently alarming; but, in addition, the officers of the trained bands signified their adhesion to the "representation" of the army; and more than six hundred privates of the regiment formerly commanded by Colonel Pride published their determination to stand by their officers in the maintenance "of the old cause."[3] The