At the close of the first session of the second Parliament, there was enacted, on Friday, the 26th of June, 1657, a gorgeous ceremony, equivalent to the coronation of the Puritan king. Purple robes, sceptre, and sword, a chair of state—no other than the regal one of Scotland, brought out of Westminster Abbey—and a brilliant array of officers, judges, civic dignitaries, and the like, gave regal pomp to the occasion.[153] The scene was exhibited under a magnificent canopy of state in Westminster Hall, whose oaken rafters had so often echoed with the music and revelry of Plantagenet and Tudor feastings; and where, in 1653, Cromwell had first been installed Protector, with less state splendour than on this second occasion, and without the addition of any sacred rites.[154] Religious worship, however, became associated with the present solemnity, and there also appeared religious symbolism in a form which passed quite beyond the common circle of Puritan ideas. The Speaker of the House of Commons referred to Alexander, and Aristotle, to Moses, and Homer, to David, and Solomon, and to "the noble Lord Talbot, in Henry the Sixth's time," in order to shew what appropriate spiritual lessons were suggested by the robes, the sceptre, the sword, and the Bible. Richly-gilt and embossed, the Holy Book was—with the regalia—laid upon a table covered with pink-coloured Genoa velvet fringed with gold. "His Highness," dressed in a costly mantle lined with ermine, and girt with a sword of great value, stood—says a contemporary record—"looking up unto the throne of the Most High, who is Prince of princes, and in whom is all his confidence; Mr. Manton, by prayer, recommended his Highness, the Parliament, the Council, his Highness's forces by sea and land, the whole Government, and people of these three nations, to the blessing and protection of God Almighty. After this, the people giving several great shouts, and the trumpets sounding, his Highness sat down in the chair of state, holding the sceptre in his hand."[155] Heralds; Garter, and Norroy, King-at-Arms; his Highness's Gentlemen; men of the Long Robe; the Judges; Commissioners of all sorts; Robert, Earl of Warwick, bareheaded, with the sword of the Commonwealth; the Lord Mayor, with the City sword; Privy Counsellors and Generals took part in the ceremony—whilst on seats, built scaffold-wise, sat the Members of Parliament; and below them, the Judges and the Aldermen of London.
1658, January.
When the ceremony had ended, the Protector—having saluted the foreign ambassadors—entered his state coach, together with the Earl of Warwick, Lord Richard Cromwell, his son, and Bulstrode, Lord Whitelocke, who sat with him on one side; and Lord Viscount Lisle and General Montague on the other: Lord Claypole led the horse of honour caparisoned with the richest trappings. At night there were great rejoicings.
Re-assembling of Parliament.
Parliament reassembled January the 20th, 1658. Lord Commissioner Fiennes made a speech that day before his Highness, in which he entered at large upon the subject of toleration and charity. He spoke quaintly of the Rock:—"A spirit of imposing upon men's consciences, where God leaves them a latitude;" and of the Quicksand:—"An abominable licentiousness to profess and practise any sort of detestable opinions and principles." The object of the Petition and Advice was to steer a middle course between the two. He strongly inveighed against bigotry, and maintained that the right way was the golden mean, even God's way. God, when he came to Elijah, was not in the whirlwind, the earthquake, or the fire; but in the small still voice. So with men's religious profession. "It must," said his Lordship, "be a small and still voice, enough to hold forth a certain and distinct sound, but not to make so great a noise as to drown all other voices besides. It is good, it is useful, to hold forth a certain confession of the truth; but not so as thereby to exclude all those that cannot come up to it in all points, from the privileges which belong to them as Christians, much less, which belong to them as men."[156] The members who had been excluded were now admitted, after having taken the oath according to the "Petition and Advice." They were extremely republican in their ideas, and were inveterate enemies to the Protector: their influence with their own party outside had been increased by their recent conduct, which was regarded as proving their strong attachment to "the good old cause." At the same time some of Cromwell's warmest friends were removed to the other House, which had been constituted so as to resemble somewhat the ancient House of Peers. The effect of this new state of things upon the two parties existing among the Commons became immediately apparent.
1658, January.
After the new oath had been administered to all the ministers—a business which it took some hours for six commissioners to accomplish—the Commons, preceded by their mace-bearer, as of old, marched up to the House of Lords, where his Highness the Protector, in kingly state, received them, and then proceeded to address the united assembly as "My Lords and Gentlemen."—"You have now a godly ministry," said his Highness, "you have a knowing ministry; such an one as, without vanity be it spoken, the world has not, men knowing the things of God, and able to search into the things of God, by that only which can fathom those things in some measure."[157]
Debates.
Soon after Cromwell's opening speech, a debate arose about the "maintenance of a godly ministry"—by which words the Lord Protector on the one hand, and on the other, many who sat in this Parliament, would not mean quite the same thing. In the estimation of certain members, scarcely any revenues remained for the Clergy, notwithstanding all the provision which had been made for them of late years. Forty or fifty petitions lay on the table, asking for aid to support the preaching of the Gospel; but there existed no available sources of relief. In Lancashire it was affirmed that there were parishes, nineteen miles square, containing two thousand Protestant communicants, besides as many Papists—which parishes greatly needed subdivision, whilst the ministers equally needed increased means of support. How to maintain the clergy was the question in hand; but, according to a habit common in public assemblies, the debate soon veered round to another point, and presently the House was found struggling with the enquiry, Should there be another Convocation or Assembly of Divines? One member battled both points at once—contending there was no need of any further assembly; and that before they raised additional money for religious purposes they ought to pay their civil debts. A second speaker observed that there had been already an Assembly, which had settled foundations, but it had been dissolved, and to call another would be very expensive—whilst persons fit to compose it would be found very scarce. But, exclaimed a third, though what the late Assembly resolved had been put in print, it had not been put in practice, and there needed a new authority of the same kind, to gather out the weeds from amidst the corn. The ordination of ministers and some outward form of unity were also of great importance, which could be obtained only by another ecclesiastical Convocation. A fourth condemned the proposal altogether, inasmuch as the former assembly had sat long, had cost much, and had effected little. With such differences of opinion that question was speedily waived. Complaints respecting the marriage law and the insecurity of registration next came upon the carpet; and the non-residence of leading men in the universities was attacked by the introduction of a Bill for its prevention; but soon a subject arose before the House which swallowed up all other subjects of debate. Cromwell's batch of Peers proved the rock on which the second Protectorate Parliament went to pieces.[158] Sir Arthur Haselrig—who took his seat with the Commons, although nominated one of the new Peers—appears prominently in the final Republican broil, occasioned by the attempt to give to the Commonwealth somewhat of the aristocratic aspect of a kingdom. And here, it is affecting to recollect the change which eighteen years had effected in reference to men as well as measures. Of the patriots who took the lead at the opening of the Long Parliament, John Pym slept under the pavement of Westminster Abbey; John Hampden was at rest in the village church which bore his name; Brooke, years before, had ended his career at Lichfield; Dering, after his changeful course, had been gathered to his fathers; Vane and Marten were in retirement; others had disappeared; and now, of all the most busy actors on the stage in 1640, there remained before the public view only Oliver Cromwell, with Haselrig, the "hare-brained" in hot opposition, and Nathaniel Fiennes—more wise in council than valiant in war—fighting out this last political battle at the side of the Protector, his old friend.