suggested, in a letter to the speaker, that enough had been done to subdue the refractory spirit of the citizens. But the parliamentary leaders were not satisfied: they voted that he should execute his former orders; and the demolition of the gates and portcullises was effected. The soldiers loudly proclaimed their discontent : the general, mortified and ashamed, though he had been instructed to quarter them in the city, led them back to Whitehall '. There, on the review of these proceedings, he thought that he discovered proofs of a design, first to commit him with the citizens, and then to discard him entirely. For the house, while he was so ungraciously employed, had received, with a show of favour, a petition from the celebrated Praise-God Barebone, praying that no man might sit in parliament, or hold any public office, who refused to abjure the pretensions of Charles Stuart, or any other single person. Now this was the very case of the general, and his suspicions were confirmed by the reasoning of his confidential advisers. With their aid, a letter to the Feb. 10. speaker was prepared the same evening, and approved the next morning by the council of officers. In it the latter were made to complain that they had been rendered the instruments of personal resentment against the citizens, and to require that by the following Friday every vacancy in the house should be filled up, preparatory to its subsequent dissolution and the calling of a new parliament. Without waiting for an answer, Monk marched He joins back into Finsbury-fields at his request, a common council (that body had recently been dissolved by a vote of the parliament) was summoned; and the citizens heard

1 Journ. Feb. 9. Philips, 599.

with them.

Admits the

secluded members.

from the mouth of the general, that he,

who yesterday

had come among them as an enemy by the orders of others, was come that day as a friend by his own choice; and his object was to unite his fortune with theirs, and by their assistance to obtain a full and free parliament for the nation. This speech was received with the loudest acclamations. The bells were tolled; the soldiers were feasted; bonfires were lighted; and, among the frolics of the night was << the roasting of the rump, » a practical joke which long lived in the traditions of the city. Scot and Robinson, who had been sent to lead back the general to Whitehall, slunk away in secrecy, that they might escape the indignation of the populace. '

At Westminster, the parliamentary leaders affected a calmness and intrepidity which they did not feel. Of the Feb. 11. insult offered to their authority they took no notice; but, as an admonition to Monk, brought in a bill to appoint his rival, Fleetwood, commander-in-chief in England and Scotland. The intervention of the Sunday allowed more sober counsels to prevail. They solicited the general to return to Whitehall; they completed the bill for the qualifications of the candidates and the electors; and, on Feb. 17. the day fixed by the letter of the officers, ordered writs to

«

Price, 765-8. Clar. Pap. iii. 681. 692. 714. Ludlow, 337. Gamble, 249, Skinner, 237–243. Old Parl. Hist. xxii. 94. Pepys, i. 24, 25. « At Strand-bridge I could at one time tell thirty-one fires; in King-street, seven or eight, and all along burning and roasting, << and drinking for rumps; there being rumps tied upon sticks and carried up and down. The butchers at the May-pole in the Strand << rang a peal with their knives, when they were going to sacrifice « their rump. On Ludgatehill there was one turning of the spit that had a rump tied to it, and another basting of it. Indeed it was past « imagination.» Ibid. 28.

«

be issued for the filling up of the vacancies in the representation. This measure had been forced upon them; yet they had the ingenuity to make it subservient to their own interest, by inserting a provision in the act, that no man should choose or be chosen who had not already bound himself to support a republican form of government. But immediately the members excluded in 1648 brought forward their claim to sit, and Monk assumed the appearance of the most perfect indifference between the parties. At his invitation, nine of the leaders on each side argued the case before him and his officers; and the result was, that the latter expressed their willingness to support the secluded members, on condition that they should pledge themselves to settle the government of the army, to raise money to pay the arrears, to issue writs for a new parliament to sit on the 20th of April, and to dissolve themselves before that period. The general returned to Whitehall: the secluded members attended his summons; Feb. 21. and, after a long speech, declaratory of his persuasion that a republican form of government and a moderate presbyterian kirk were necessary to secure and perpetuate the tranquillity of the nation, he exhorted them to go and resume their seats. Accompanied by a great number of officers, they walked to the house; the guards opened to let them pass; and no opposition was made by the speaker or the members'. Haslerig, however, and the more devoted of his adherents, rose, and withdrew a fortunate

'Journals, Feb. 11. 13. 15. 17. 21. Price, 768-773. Ludlow, ii. 345. 351. 3. Skinner, 256–264. Clar. Pap. 663. 682. 8. Gamble, 260. 3. Philips, 600. The number of secluded members then living was 194, of members sitting or allowed to sit by the orders of the house 89. « A Declaration of the True state of the Matter of Fact, 57.

D

Perplexity of the royal

its.

secession for the royalists; otherwise, with the addition of those among the restored members who adhered to a commonwealth, they might on many questions have still commanded a majority. '

To the cavaliers, the conduct of Monk on this occasion proved a source of the most distressing perplexity. On the one hand by introducing the secluded members he had greatly advanced the cause of royalty. For, though Hollis, Pierpoint, Popham, and their friends, still professed the doctrines which they had maintained during the treaty in the Isle of Wight, though they manifested the same hatred of popery and prelacy, though they still inculcated the necessity of limiting the prerogative in the choice of the officers of state and in the command of the army, yet they were royalists by principle, and had, several of them, made the most solemn promises to the exiled king of labouring strenuously for his restoration. On the other hand, that Monk at the very time when he gave the law without control, should declare so loudly in favour of a republican government and a presbyterian kirk, could not fail to alarm both Charles and his abettors 2. Neither was this the only instance : to all, cavaliers or republicans, who approached him to discover his intentions, he uniformly professed the same sentiments, occasionally confirming his professions with oaths and imprecations. To explain this inconsistency between the tendency of his actions and the purport of his language, we are told by those whom he admitted to his private counsels, that it was forced upon him by the necessity of his situation; that, without it, he must have forfeited the confidence of

the army, which believed its safety and interest to be intimately linked with the existence of the commonwealth. According to Ludlow, the best soldier and statesman in the opposite party, Monk had in view an additional object, to deceive the suspicions and divert the vigilance of his adversaries; and so successfully had he imposed on the credulity of many (Hazlerig himself was of the number), that, in defiance of every warning, they blindly trusted to his sincerity, till their eyes were opened by the introduction of the secluded members. '

house.

In parliament the presbyterian party now ruled without Proceedopposition. They annulled all votes relative to the death ings of the of the late king and their own expulsion from the house; they selected a new council of state, in which the most influential members were royalists; they appointed Monk commander-in-chief of the forces in the three kingdoms, and joint commander of the fleet with admiral Montague; they voted him the sum of 20,000l. in lieu of the palace of Hampton-court settled on him by the republican party; they discharged from confinement, and freed from the penalty of sequestration, sir George Booth and his associates, a great number of cavaliers, and the Scottish lords taken after the battle at Worcester; they restored the common council, borrowed 60,000l. for the immediate pay of the army, declared the presbyterian confession of faith to be that of the church of England, ordered copies of the solemn league and covenant to be hung up in all churches, offered rewards for the apprehension of catholic priests, urged the execution of the laws against catholic recusants, and fixed the 15th of March for their own dis- March.

Price, 773. Ludlow, 449. 355. Clar. Pap. iii. 678. 697. 703. 711.