Cromwell, who alone at that moment had the sagacity to perceive to the full extent the mischiefs which threatened his country, therefore interposed, with an energy which was as startling as it was bold; and which is now acknowledged by numerous careful students of history to have proceeded from wisdom as really profound as it was, at the time, apparently questionable. Upon the disappearance of the Long Parliament from the chapel of St. Stephen's, there followed the disappearance of Sir Harry Vane from the Cabinet of Whitehall. As an honest republican he could not but condemn the course pursued by his colleague; and the two men—who, with Marten, for some time after the establishment of the Commonwealth were the chief pillars of England—now stood parted from each other in this world for ever. The triumvirate was at an end. It had given place to a virtual monarchy.[43]
But though Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament he had no idea of ruling England without the assistance of a popular assembly; and hence, within three months after that extraordinary event, a new Parliament was convened at Westminster.
1653, July.
The theory of its constitution was unique. It was to consist of men who were able, who loved the truth, who feared God, and who hated covetousness; so ran the terms employed in certain directions given to the Congregational churches to send up names to the Lord General,[44] out of which list, together with another provided by the council of officers, the members of the new convention were to be selected. There were not wanting, at such a moment, people to tilt their jests—and they asked if the image of Him who rode into Jerusalem upon an ass was not a type of the new deliverer about to ride to a throne on the back of one hundred and twenty asses—that being the number of the Little Parliament.
Little Parliament.
Upon the list of the summoned appears the name of Dennis Hollister—a grocer in High Street, Bristol—a person who had great influence with the magistrates of the city, and who is described in the records of the church of which he was a member,[45] "as Diotrephes-like, loving to have the pre-eminence," and as "sucking in some principles of an upstart locust doctrine, from a sort of people afterwards called Quakers." If there be any truth in such a statement, this new member of Parliament must have been fanatical in one way, while his fellow-members were fanatical in another; and such conflicting phases of fanaticism made the settlement of ecclesiastical business in connexion with the State exceedingly difficult; rendering it necessary for Cromwell to interpose with his strong English common sense, unless affairs were left to fall to ruin. Fanatical people there must have been in this singularly constituted assembly, but it numbered also persons rationally religious; and even in the fanatics there might be redeeming qualities. What they said and did are the truest tests by which to judge of what they really were; and it will be seen, that amidst their follies, some of their words and deeds were of a description not to be despised. Much is said of their birth and station; but the grocers and leather-sellers of that day might be rich and prosperous, and socially on a level with the merchants and cotton-lords, who, in our own time, sit upon the benches at Westminster.[46] There were of the number also, Lords, and Knights, and Colonels; and two of the individuals summoned, who afterwards sat in Charles the Second's House of Peers, as Earl of Albemarle and Earl of Shaftesbury, have been pronounced by history as certainly not the most respectable persons in the Little Parliament.
1653, July.
On the 4th of July, 1653—a very sultry day—the gentlemen met in the Whitehall Council Chamber, and seated themselves round the room on chairs. As Cromwell, with his officers, entered, all present rose and bowed. The General moved his hat, advanced to the middle window, and leaning on the back of a chair, addressed them for more than an hour. Descanting upon religion, he pleaded earnestly that all God's saints should be treated with tenderness, and that if he had seemed to reflect upon those who held Presbyterian opinions, he now thought faithfulness demanded that he should love them. He had, when God had been gracious to him and his companions, often read that passage: "He would plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; and He would set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine tree, and the box tree together. That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together." Therefore he besought his audience to have care for the whole flock—lambs and all—and if the poorest and most mistaken Christian should desire to live peaceably and quietly under the government, let him be protected. He pleaded for a faithful ministry, such as did not derive itself from the Papacy; the true succession being through the Holy Spirit. He never looked, he said, to see such a day as that he now witnessed, Jesus Christ being owned by all. The persons present might not personally be known to each other; but the endeavour in calling that New Parliament had been, not to choose any but such as had hope and faith in Christ. "The Lord," he observed, "shakes the hills and mountains, and they reel; and God hath a hill too, an high hill as the hill of Bashan, and the chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, and God will dwell upon this hill for ever." Such a speech had never before been delivered at the opening of a Parliament.
When it was finished, a formal instrument devolving authority on the members was placed on the table, with the General's signature and seal, after which he left the Chamber,—politically "nothing more than the brewer's son of Huntingdon."[47]
Little Parliament.