[Footnote 2: Thurloe, 659, 661.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. April 22.]
his court, abandoned him, some to appease, by their attendance at Wallingford House, the resentment of their adversaries, the others, to provide, by their absence, for their own safety. If the supreme authority resided any where, it was with Fleetwood, who now held the nominal command of the army; but he and his associates were controlled both by the meeting of officers at St. James's, and by the consultations of the republican party in the city; and therefore contented themselves with depriving the friends of Richard of their commissions, and with giving their regiments to the men who had been cashiered by his father.[1] Unable to agree on any form of government among themselves, they sought to come to an understanding with the republican leaders. These demanded the restoration of the long parliament, on the ground that, as its interruption by Cromwell had been illegal, it was still the supreme authority in the nation; and the officers, unwilling to forfeit the privileges of their new peerage, insisted on the reproduction of the other house, as a co-ordinate authority, under the less objectionable name of a senate. But the country was now in a state of anarchy; the intentions of the armies in Scotland and Ireland remained uncertain; and the royalists, both Presbyterians and Cavaliers, were exerting themselves to improve the general confusion to the advantage of the exiled king. As a last resource, the officers, by an instrument in which they regretted their past errors and backsliding, invited[a] the members of the long parliament to resume the trust of
[Footnote 1: See the Humble Remonstrance from four hundred Non-commissioned
Officers and Privates of Major-general Goffe's Regiment (so called) of
Foot. London, 1659.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. May 6.]
which they had been unrighteously deprived. With some difficulty, two-and-forty were privately collected in the Painted Chamber; Lenthall, the former speaker, after much entreaty, put himself at their head,[a] and the whole body passed into the house through two lines of officers, some of whom were the very individuals by whom, six years before, they had been ignominiously expelled.[1]
The reader will recollect that, on a former occasion, in the year 1648, the Presbyterian members of the long parliament had been excluded by the army. Of these, one hundred and ninety-four were still alive, eighty of whom actually resided in the capital. That they had as good a right to resume their seats as the members who had been expelled by Cromwell could hardly be doubted; but they were royalists, still adhering to the principles which they professed during the treaty in the Isle of Wight, and from their number, had they been admitted, would have instantly outvoted the advocates of republicanism. They assembled in Westminster Hall; and a deputation of fourteen, with Sir George Booth, Prynne, and Annesley at their head, proceeded to the house. The doors were closed in their faces; a company of soldiers, the keepers, as they were sarcastically called, of the liberties of England, filled the lobby; and a resolution was passed that no former member, who had not subscribed the engagement, should sit till further order of parliament.[c] The attempt, however, though it failed of success, produced its effect. It served to countenance a belief that the sitting members were mere tools of the military, and supplied the royalists with the means of masking their
[Footnote 1: Ludlow, 179-186. Whitelock, 677. England's Confusion, 9.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. May 7.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1659. May 7.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1659. May 9.]
real designs under the popular pretence of vindicating the freedom of parliament.[1]