This dangerous move on the part of the Commonwealth men soon began to show itself. A pamphlet had already appeared setting out Monk's royal descent. Now an insidious motion was made in the House to bestow on him and his heirs for ever the palace of Hampton Court and all its parks, and a Bill to give it effect was successfully brought in. But before long a still better opportunity presented itself to Haslerig. On March 13th the House, on the plea of leaving the nation absolutely free, abrogated the "Engagement" which members had to take to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth as established without King or House of Lords. Monk was highly annoyed. He looked upon it as a breach of the conditions on which the secluded members had been admitted. Jealous of his principles, he had seated them with a high hand on the express understanding that nothing was to be done to alter the constitution. Practically the vote went far to make him and the army responsible for the counter-revolution to which it directly pointed, and which every day looked more unavoidable. Haslerig saw the moment had come to play his trump card. With the concurrence of their party and a number of officers, he, Scot, and some others repaired to Whitehall, bent on inducing Monk to assume the protectorate. Clarges was first sounded. He gave no encouragement, and the conspirators left him to go straight to the lord-general. In alarm lest his brother-in-law's power of resistance should be unequal to so splendid a temptation, Clarges flew to the Council which was sitting in a room close by. In answer to an urgent summons Ashley Cooper came out, and Clarges hurriedly told him his alarming suspicions of what was going on in the lord-general's apartments.
Meanwhile by every argument Haslerig and his friends were pressing Monk to take upon himself the civil authority as well as the military. It was clear, they said, from the late vote that a restoration was intended, and a restoration meant his death, for like Stanley, who enthroned the Tudors, he was too great to live. Monk told them to fear nothing. The House merely wanted to leave its successor entirely free, and as for taking upon himself the civil authority, the fate of Cromwell's family was a warning to which he could not be deaf. Haslerig urged that Cromwell was a usurper, while Monk would be acclaimed by the nation. He himself was prepared to bring a petition with a hundred thousand signatures. But the lord-general was obdurate, and dismissing the conspirators he repaired to his place at the Council. The moment he appeared Ashley Cooper got up and moved that the room be cleared and the doors locked. Then he charged Monk with having received some indecent overtures from seditious persons, and demanded a full disclosure of their nature that the Council might take steps accordingly. But the kindly old general had no mind to see proscriptions begin. He had no idea of letting one party shed the blood of another, and being fully determined to hold the balance true till the nation's wishes could be weighed, he was not averse to letting the Council see what volcanic forces he could explode upon them at a word. "There is not so much danger in agitation as you apprehend," he said when Ashley Cooper had done. "It is true some have been with me to be resolved in scruples concerning the present transactions in Parliament, but they went away from me well satisfied." And the Council had to tamely receive the rebuke of the fearless look and laconic address which their consciences were too guilty to resent.
So the incident ended, but not without one important result. As Gumble had lost the general's ear from being suspected probably of too close an understanding with his old patron Scot, so now Clarges, who had succeeded him, was superseded by a new councillor. By the advice of his brother Nicholas the general invited his kinsman Morice, the secluded member for Plymouth, to come up and take his seat, and from this time forward the slow-witted soldier had at his elbow the political sagacity of this scholarly recluse.
It was indeed fortunate that he had, for he was not yet to be left in peace. Haslerig immediately returned to the attack with a petition from a number of officers begging the lord-general to sign a declaration in favour of a Commonwealth and against a single person, and to get the Parliament to do the same. In the army lay the great danger to the country. Monk knew that the only chance of a settlement rested on his ability to keep it in hand till the great voice of the nation could speak its mind with overwhelming authority. Sensible of the gravity of the situation, he told the deputation he would give them an answer in Council of War on the morrow. He was confronted with a danger as great as any he had yet encountered, and he met it with his usual address. To the malcontents' arguments his spokesmen answered that their fears and hopes were alike groundless. The writs ran in the name of the Commonwealth, and every one who had served against the Parliament was disqualified. In any case no good could come of an attempt to put pressure on the House, for it would only dissolve itself and plunge the nation once more into anarchy. And they need not hope that the lord-general in that event would assume the government. They would merely be left a prey to the common enemy. Monk confirmed all his friends had said in the usual laconic speech with which he was wont to close such discussions. Still they were not satisfied. An officer continued to boldly argue that the qualifications were no safeguard, as the new Parliament alone had power to decide whether they had been observed. The argument was unanswerable. Monk abruptly cut it short by saying that the meetings of military councils to meddle with civil matters were subversive of discipline, and for the future he absolutely forbade them. The army was still tingling with the blows by which the terrible disciplinarian had broken it to his will. In various parts of the country where insubordination had shown itself new ones had been inflicted to remind them in whose grip they were. The new spirit of modern discipline which Monk had begotten was already arising, and Haslerig was once more baffled.
Still he was not defeated, and the last hours of the great Parliament are obscured in the mists of another intrigue in which the indomitable Republican played a mysterious part. A resolution had been passed that the dissolution should take place on or before March 16th. As the time drew near signs of a strong disinclination to abide by it began to appear. Monk, who had retired to St. James's to keep as much in the background as possible, began to have his suspicions. The original understanding had been that they were to sit for about a week and do nothing but arrange for a new Parliament and an interim Government, and to take measures to keep the military Fanatics quiet. This merely meant that they were to provide Monk with pay for the army and all that was necessary for the preservation of order. They chose, however, to interpret it by passing a Bill for the re-establishment of the militia, and putting it into the hands of their own men. Not content with this breach of faith, they began busying themselves with Church matters. In a Presbyterian and Independent Parliament such questions were not to be settled in an hour. When the writs came out, moreover, it was found that they had been made returnable five days later than the specified time. The Militia Bill had gone to the printers, but had not yet been published. A committee was sent to inquire into the delay. It was found that the Bill had been tampered with in the press. Haslerig was suspected of being at the bottom of it. However that may be, it had the effect he would have wished. Monk's suspicions were changed to certainties. At St. James's it became clear that the Presbyterians were manœuvring to gain time, till they had the new militia in readiness to support them in prolonging their sitting and recalling the King on their own terms. Pym indeed had so openly advocated this course that the general had had to send for him privately and warn him to hold his tongue. It was just what Monk had feared, but though his own sympathies were in favour of the moderate Presbyterians, he was not going to allow that party to steal a march on the country any more than the Cavaliers or Fanatics or Republicans, and he put his foot down at once.
When the House met on the 6th an ominous letter from the redoubtable general was in the Speaker's hands. Like naughty children conscious of their guilt, they voted that it should not be opened for the present lest it contained a command for them to be gone. The previous day the Bill for settling Hampton Court upon the general had been thrown out on the third reading, at the instance of his friends, it was said, but from what ensued it would seem that at least it was done with unseemly alacrity; and if Monk did not approve of it, it is certainly strange that it was allowed to proceed so far. At all events, as the alarming letter lay unopened before them, they hurriedly voted the lord-general £20,000 and the stewardship of the palace and all its parks. Then the seal was broken and the general's message read. It assured them that he would be responsible for the peace of the Commonwealth with his army, and desired them to stop the reorganisation of the militia. What more it contained we do not know. The immediate effect was that the House despatched a committee to St. James's to give satisfaction to the irate general, and voted to take the question of dissolution the first thing after dinner.
As soon as the members met again after the mid-day adjournment the committee reported that they had been to the general, and he was satisfied with their explanations. But the House had been taught a lesson, and in a few hours, by its own act, the most renowned Parliament that ever sat was no more.