Upon the 13th of May the heads of the Army presented a petition, in which they proposed to men whom they addressed as rulers, but who were in fact servants, that religious liberty should, as in the days of Oliver, continue to be conceded to all orthodox believers (Papists and Prelatists being distinctly excepted); that a godly ministry should be everywhere maintained; and that the universities and schools of learning should be countenanced and reformed.[21] Gleams of Presbyterian influence disappeared; the broad ecclesiastical policy of Oliver again resumed the ascendant.
A new Council of State was formed, and the names of Vane and Haselrig once more prominently appeared, together with those of Whitelock and Fleetwood—the one a legal cipher, the other a military tool.
1659.
Fleetwood occupied Wallingford House, which stood on the site of the present Admiralty, the birthplace of the second Duke of Buckingham, and the residence of the infamous Countess of Essex. Here it was, from the roof of the mansion, then occupied by the Earl of Peterborough, that Archbishop Ussher had swooned at the sight of Charles' execution; and here Fleetwood, who from his connection with the Cromwells on the one side, and with the Army on the other, now possessed more power than any other person, gathered together his brother officers for conference. Fleetwood was a pious and respectable Independent,[22] a sincere patriot, a Republican only in a qualified sense, willing to concede to a Protector large administrative authority. He was not without ambition, although he had prudence enough to curb it; yet neither by gifts of nature, force of character, or study and experience, was he a man fitted to deal with existing emergencies. He had no original genius, being born to follow, not to lead. He helped to pull down the Protectorate, and to dethrone his brother-in-law, but he had no gift for building up any better order of things. He could aid the destructive movements of Vane and Haselrig; but he had no more of the faculty of constructiveness than had they.
INTERREGNUM.
John Howe, who, in the month of May, was residing at Whitehall after an absence of some months, saw and lamented the condition of affairs. The "army-men," he says, under pretence of zeal for the interests of religious liberty were seeking their own ends, and were for that purpose drawing to themselves "wild-headed persons of all sorts." "Such persons," he adds, "as are now at the head of affairs will blast religion, if God prevent not." "I know some leading men are not Christians. Religion is lost out of England, farther than as it can creep into corners. Those in power, who are friends to it, will no more suspect these persons than their ownselves."[23] These are not the words of a party man; and they show that whatever might be the piety of Fleetwood, and the purity of Vane, there were persons of a different character who employed them as tools for selfish ends. In the same letter, Howe speaks in favourable terms of Richard, whom he must have known well. The disinterestedness, and even patriotism of the Protector appeared in his resignation of power. "He resolved to venture upon it himself, rather than suffer it to be taken with more hazard to the country by others," and he awakens our sympathy by his own truthful words, that "he was betrayed by those whom he most trusted." He quitted Whitehall, with trunks full of addresses, which contained, as he humorously remarked, "the lives and fortunes of all the good people of England." More at home in the hunting-field than in the cabinet—he, after residing abroad for a time, spent the rest of his days in his native land as a country gentleman; and died at Cheshunt, July the 12th, 1712, saying to his daughter, "Live in love; I am going to the God of love."[24] He lies buried in Hursley Church, where he regularly worshipped during his residence in the parish. Within the same walls, by a coincidence which will be often noticed in future days, there now repose the remains of a holy man and a great poet, whose sympathies never seem to have reached the fallen Protector during a ministry, in that place, of thirty years.[25]
The power of the Cromwell family came to an end upon the dissolution of Richard's Parliament, except that Fleetwood was acknowledged by the Army as Lieutenant-general. Lord Falconbridge, and also the Lords Broghill and Howard retired into the country; and, as the Protectorate had vanished, they prepared to welcome the restoration of Monarchy.
1659.
Leaving Whitehall we return to Wallingford House. Fleetwood, being an Independent, civil affairs being entangled with such as were ecclesiastical, and the interests of religion being so completely involved in the political changes of the day—a fact which justifies so much being said about them in an Ecclesiastical History—he and Desborough, who sympathized with him, invited to their councils Dr. Owen, the Independent, and Dr. Manton, the Presbyterian. A story is told of the former, to the effect, that, at Wallingford House, he had prayed for the downfall of Richard, so as to be heard by Manton, who stood outside the door. It is further stated that Owen had gathered a Church there; and that in one of its assemblies a determination had been formed to compel Richard to dissolve his Parliament.[26] The Independent Divine denied that he had anything to do with the setting up, or the pulling down of Richard; and it has been also denied that he gathered a Church in Wallingford House. Whatever might be the extent of Owen's political interference at that crisis, and whether or not he gathered a Church there, certainly at the time one existed upon the spot. The Records of the Congregational Church at Yarmouth indicate that a religious society assembled at Fleetwood's residence, and carried on correspondence with other similar bodies.[27] These records shed light upon a critical and dubious juncture in our history.