HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. I. THE PROTECTORATE. RICHARD CROMWELL PROTECTOR. PARLIAMENT CALLED. ---- DISSOLVED. LONG PARLIAMENT RESTORED. EXPELLED AGAIN. REINSTATED. MONK IN LONDON. READMIS- RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. 1658. sons of By his wife, Elizabeth Bourchier, Cromwell left two sons, Richard and Henry. There was a remarkable con- The two trast in the opening career of these young men. During Cromwell. the civil war Richard lived in the Temple, frequented the company of the cavaliers, and spent his time in gaiety and debauchery. Henry repaired to his father's quarters; and so rapid was his promotion, that at the age of twenty he held the commission of captain in the regiment of guards belonging to Fairfax, the lord-general. After the establishment of the commonwealth, Richard married, and, retiring to the house of his father-in-law at Hursley in Hampshire, devoted himself to the usual pursuits of a country gentleman. Henry accompanied his father in the Richard succeeds his father. reduction of Ireland, which country he afterwards governed, first with the rank of major-general, afterwards with that of lord-deputy. It was not till the second year of the protectorate that Cromwell seemed to recollect that he had an elder son. He made him a lord of trade, then chancellor of the university of Oxford, and lastly a member of the new house of peers. As these honours were far inferior to those which he lavished on other persons connected with his family, it was inferred that he entertained a mean opinion of Richard's abilities. A more probable conclusion is, that he feared to alarm the jealousy of his officers, and carefully abstained from doing that which might confirm the general suspicion, that he designed to make the protectorship hereditary in his family. The moment he expired, the counsel assembled, and the result of their deliberation was an order to proclaim Richard Cromwell protector, on the ground that he had been declared by his late highness his successor in that dignity'. Not a murmur of opposition was heard the : 'There appears good reason to doubt this assertion. Thurloe indeed (vii. 372) informs Henry Cromwell that his father named Richard to succeed on the preceding Monday. But this letter was written after the proclamation of Richard, and its contents are irreconcileable with the letters written before it. We have one from lord Falconberg, dated on Monday, saying that no nomination had been made, and that Thurloe had promised to suggest it, but probably would not perform his promise (Ibid. 365), and another from Thurloe himself to Henry Cromwell stating the same thing as to the nomination (Ibid. 364). It may perhaps be said, that Richard was named on the Monday after the letters were written; but there is a second letter from Thurloe dated on the Tuesday, stating that the protector was still incapable of public business, and that matters would, he feared, remain till the death of his highness in the same state as he described them in his letter of Monday (Ibid. 366). It was afterwards said that the nomina eeremony was performed in all places after the usual manner of announcing the accession of a new sovereign ; and addresses of condolence and congratulation poured in from the army and navy, from one hundred congregational churches, and from the boroughs, cities, and counties. It seemed as if free-born Britons had been converted into a nation of slaves. These compositions were drawn up in the highest strain of adulation, adorned with forced allusions from Scripture, and with all the extravagance of oriental hyperbole. «< Their sun was set, but «< no night had followed. They had lost the nursing father, by whose hand the yoke of bondage had been broken << from the necks and consciences of the godly. Provi<«<dence by one sad stroke had taken away the breath «from their nostrils, and smitten the head from their shoulders; but had given them in return the noblest <«< branch of that renowned stock, a prince distinguished << by the lovely composition of his person, but still more by the eminent qualities of his mind. The late pro<< tector had been a Moses to lead God's people out of the << land of Egypt: his son would be a Joshua to conduct << them into a more full possession of truth and righteous«ness. Elijah had been taken into heaven: Elisha re«<mained on earth, the inheritor of his mantle and his spirit! » " ་་ 1 tion took place on the night before the protector's death, in the presence of four of the council (Falconberg in Thurloe, 375, and Barwick, ibid. 415); but the latter adds that many doubt whether it ever took place at all. The Scottish ministers in Edinburgh, instead of joining in these addresses, prayed on the following Sunday « that the Lord would << be merciful to the exiled, and those that were in captivity, and << cause them to return with sheaves of joy; that he would deliver all Discontent of the army. The royalists, who had persuaded themselves that the whole fabric of the protectorial power would fall in pieces on the death of Cromwell, beheld with amazement the general acquiescence in the succession of Richard; and the foreign princes, who had deemed it prudent to solicit the friendship of the father, now hastened to offer their Sep. 14. congratulations to his son. Yet, fair and tranquil as the prospect appeared, an experienced eye might easily detect the elements of an approaching storm. Meetings were clandestinely held by the officers; doubts were whispered of the nomination of Richard by his father; and an opinion was encouraged among the military that, as the commonwealth was the work of the army, so the chief office in the commonwealth belonged to the commander of the army. On this account the protectorship had been bestowed on Cromwell; but his son was a civilian, who had never drawn his sword in the cause; and to suffer the supreme power to devolve on him, was to disgrace, to disinherit the men who had suffered so severely and bled so profusely, in the contest. These complaints had probably been suggested, they were certainly fomented, by Fleetwood and his friends, the colonels Cooper, Berry, and Sydenham. Fleetwood was brave in the field but irresolute in council; eager for the acquisition of power, but continually checked by scruples of conscience; attached by principle to republicanism, but ready to acquiesce in every change under the pretence of submission to the decrees of Providence. Cromwell, who knew the man, had raised him to the se his people from the yoke of Pharoah, and the task-masters of Egypt, and that he would cut off their oppressors, and hasten the time of << their deliverance. » Thurloe, vii. 416. cond command in the army, and fed his ambition with distant and delusive hopes of succeeding to the supreme magistracy. The protector died, and Fleetwood, instead of acting, hesitated, prayed, and consulted: the propitious moment was suffered to pass by: he assented to the opinion of the council in favour of Richard; and then repenting of his weakness, sought to indemnify himself for the loss by confining the authority of the protector to the civil administration, and procuring for himself the sole uncontrolled command of the army. Under the late government the meetings of military officers had been discountenanced and forbidden : now they were encouraged to meet and consult; and, in a body of more than two hundred individuals, they presented to Richard a petition, by which they demanded that no officer should be deprived but by sentence of a court-martial, and that the chief command of the forces, and the disposal of commissions, should be conferred on some person whose past services had proved his attachment to the cause. There were not wanting those who advised the protector to extinguish the hopes of the factious at once by arresting and imprisoning the chiefs; but more moderate counsels prevailed, and in a firm but conciliatory speech, the composition of secretary Thurloe, he replied that, to gratify Oct. 14. their wishes, he had appointed his relative, Fleetwood, lieutenant-general of all the forces; but that, to divest himself of the chief command, and of the right of giving or resuming commissions, would be to act in defiance of the «< petition and advice», the instrument by which he held the supreme authority. For a short time they appeared satisfied; but the chief officers continued to hold meetings in the chapel at St. James's, ostensibly for the |