which they thought were wicked, but which are not thought wicked now. Cromwell knew that plots were constantly being formed against him, and he did all that he could to put them down, without caring whether what he was doing was lawful or not. Then too, as he had dismissed his Parliament, he gathered taxes which had never been voted by Parliament at all. Still, he would have been glad to have had a Parliament to support him, and he therefore summoned another.

8. Cromwell's Second Parliament.-This time Cromwell drew up a list of those members who were likely to be troublesome, and would not let them come to the Parliament. As might be expected, those who were left in were more friendly to him than the last Parliament had been. They drew up what was called the Petition and Advice, in which they asked Cromwell to take the title of king, to add a House of Lords to the Parliament, and to renounce the power of excluding from the House of Commons members who had been duly elected. Cromwell refused to take the title of king, but agreed to the rest. When Parliament met again he found himself worse off than before. The House of Commons refused to pay any respect to the new lords, and would not attend to business. Cromwell dissolved his second Parliament as he had dissolved his first. Very few people except the soldiers wished him well, and before the end of 1658 he died. He had tried to do his best as far as he understood it, but England did not like to be governed by a soldier.

9. Richard Cromwell's Protectorate and the restored Commonwealth.-Cromwell's eldest son Richard succeeded his father as Protector. He was a goodnatured man who never took any trouble about anything, and had no idea how to govern. He summoned a Parliament, and the Parliament supported him because its members wanted to be ruled by a man who was not a soldier. The soldiers demanded to have the right of naming their own general, so as to make themselves quite independent of Richard. When this was refused, they marched to Westminster, and turned Richard and his Parliament out of doors. They then brought back such of the members of the Parliament which had been turned out by Cromwell some years before as were still living. They soon found that these men were as resolved not to be managed by the soldiers as Richard's Parliament had been, and they turned them out too. They tried to manage the government without a Parliament at all, but it was not long before they found out that people would not pay taxes unless they were voted by a Parliament, and they brought back the members of the old Long Parliament once more.

10. The Restoration. In Scotland there was an English army commanded by George Monk. He was a silent man, who did not care much about politics, but who knew that Englishmen did not like to be governed by soldiers. He crossed the Tweed and marched for London, without letting any one know what he intended to do. When he arrived he found everything in confusion. After some hesita

tion he declared for a free Parliament, that is to say, for a Parliament from which no one who might be elected should be kept out by the soldiers, and which should decide matters as it thought right, whether the soldiers liked it or not. Parliament voted its own dissolution.

The old Long

A new Parlia

ment was chosen, and the young king was invited to come home, and to reign as Charles II.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE FIRST TWELVE YEARS OF

CHARLES II.

(1660-1672.)

1. Character of Charles II.-There was a song which the Royalists had been in the habit of singing, in which every verse ended with the words, 'The king shall enjoy his own again.' Charles thought that his chief object in life was gained if he enjoyed his own. As he afterwards told his brother, he was resolved that whatever happen.ed he would never go on his travels again. He liked pleasure, and his pleasure was usually of a very low and bad kind. He married a Portuguese princess, Catharine of Braganza, but he did not behave at all well to her. He was witty, and we always pleased with the society of amusing people. His subjects called him the Merry Monarch. But he had no idea that it was right for a king to sacri

fice his time and his jests to do his duty. Indeed, he never understood that there was such a thing as duty at all. It was said of him that

He never said a foolish thing,

Nor ever did a wise one.

Yet if he did not do wise acts, he was clever enough

to know when it would be hurtful to him to do foolish ones. When he saw that people were determined to have their own way, he did not try to stop them, as his father would have done. In this way,

though nobody ever found out any good that he ever did, he managed to die in his bed in England, instead of having his head cut off, like his father, or being driven into exile, as his brother afterwards was. He was not the sort of man to care much about religion. Before he came back he had

TROOPER OF HORSE GUARDS, TIME OF CHARLES II.

secretly acknowledged himself to be a Catholic, and he declared the same when he was dying. But he openly spoke of himself as a Protestant during his whole reign.

2. The Army disbanded and the Judges of Charles I. executed. When Charles II. landed at Dover he was received with the greatest enthusiasm. It is my