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The opposition which Cromwell dreaded, was not that which came from Lambert and his adherents, whom he now regarded as capital enemies, and whom he was resolved, on the first occasion, to deprive of all power and authority; it was that which he met with in his own family, and from men who, by interest as well as inclination, were the most devoted to him. Fleetwood had married his daughter; Desborow his sister; yet these men, actuated by principle alone, could by no persuasion, artifice, or entreaty be induced to consent that their friend and patron should be invested with regal dignity. They told him, that if he accepted of the crown, they would instantly throw up their commissions, and never afterwards should have it in their power to serve him.[*]

* Thurloe, vol. vi. p. 261.

Colonel Pride procured a petition against the office of king, signed by a majority of the officers who were in London and the neighborhood. Several persons, it is said, had entered into an engagement to murder the protector within a few hours after he should have accepted the offer of the parliament. Some sudden mutiny in the army was justly dreaded. And upon the whole, Cromwell, after the agony and perplexity of long doubt, was at last obliged to refuse that crown which the representatives of the nation, in the most solemn manner, had tendered to him. Most historians are inclined to blame his choice; but he must be allowed the best judge of his own situation. And in such complicated subjects, the alteration of a very minute circumstance, unknown to the spectator, will often be sufficient to cast the balance, and render a determination, which in itself may be uneligible, very prudent, or even absolutely necessary to the actor.

A dream or prophecy, Lord Clarendon mentions, which, he affirms, (and he must have known the truth,) was universally talked of almost from the beginning of the civil wars, and long before Cromwell was so considerable a person as to bestow upon it any degree of probability. In this prophecy, it was foretold that Cromwell should be the greatest man in England, and would nearly, but never would fully, mount the throne. Such a prepossession probably arose from the heated imagination either of himself or of his followers; and as it might be one cause of the great progress which he had already made, it is not an unlikely reason which may be assigned for his refusing at this time any further elevation.

The parliament, when the regal dignity was rejected by Cromwell, found themselves obliged to retain the name of a commonwealth and protector; and as the government was hitherto a manifest usurpation, it was thought proper to sanctify it by a seeming choice of the people and their representatives. Instead of the “instrument of government,” which was the work of the general officers alone, “an humble petition and advice” was framed, and offered to the protector, by the parliament. This was represented as the great basis cf the republican establishment, regulating and limiting the powers of each member of the constitution, and securing the liberty of the people to the most remote posterity. By this deed, the authority of protector was in some particulars enlarged; in others, it was considerably diminished. He had the power of nominating his successor; he had a perpetual revenue assigned him, a million a year for the pay of the fleet and army, three hundred thousand pounds for the support of civil government; and he had authority to name another house, who should enjoy their seats during life, and exercise some functions of the former house of peers. But he abandoned the power, assumed in the intervals of parliament, of framing laws with the consent of his council; and he agreed, that no members of either house should be excluded but by the consent of that house of which they were members. The other articles were in the main the same as in the instrument of government. The instrument of government Cromwell had formerly extolled as the most perfect work of human invention: he now represented it as a rotten plank, upon which no man could trust himself without sinking. Even the humble petition and advice, which he extolled in its turn, appeared so lame and imperfect, that it was found requisite, this very session, to mend it by a supplement; and after all, it may be regarded as a crude and undigested model of government. It was, however, accepted for the voluntary deed of the whole people in the three united nations; and Cromwell, as if his power had just commenced from this popular consent, was anew inaugurated in Westminster Hall, after the most solemn and most pompous manner.

The parliament having adjourned itself, the protector deprived Lambert of all his commissions; but still allowed him a considerable pension of two thousand pounds a year, as a bribe for his future peaceable deportment. Lambert’s authority in the army, to the surprise of every body, was found immediately to expire with the loss of his commission. Packet and some other officers, whom Cromwell suspected, were also displaced.

Richard, eldest son of the protector, was brought to court, introduced into public business, and thenceforth regarded by many as his heir in the protectorship; though Cromwell sometimes employed the gross artifice of flattering others with hopes of the succession. Richard was a person possessed of the most peaceable, inoffensive, unambitious character; and had hitherto lived contentedly in the country, on a small estate which his wife had brought him. All the activity which he discovered, and which never was great, was, however, exerted to beneficent purposes: at the time of the king’s trial, he had fallen on his knees before his father, and had conjured him, by every tie of duty and humanity, to spare the life of that monarch. Cromwell had two daughters unmarried; one of them he now gave in marriage to the grandson and heir of his great friend the earl of Warwick, with whom he had, in every fortune, preserved an uninterrupted intimacy and good correspondence. The other he married to the viscount Fauconberg of a family formerly devoted to the royal party. He was ambitious of forming connections with the nobility; and it was one chief motive for his desiring the title of king, that he might replace every thing in its natural order, and restore to the ancient families the trust and honor of which he now found himself obliged, for his own safety, to deprive them.

1658.

The parliament was again assembled; consisting, as in the times of monarchy, of two houses, the commons and the other house. Cromwell, during the interval, had sent writs to his house of peers, which consisted of sixty members. They were composed of five or six ancient peers, of several gentlemen of fortune and distinction, and of some officers who had risen from the meanest stations. None of the ancient peers, however, though summoned by writ, would deign to accept of a seat which they must share with such companions as were assigned them. The protector endeavored at first to maintain the appearance of a legal magistrate. He placed no guard at the door of either house; but soon found how incompatible liberty is with military usurpations. By bringing so great a number of his friends and adherents into the other house he had lost the majority among the national representatives. In consequence of a clause in the humble petition and advice the commons assumed a power of readmitting those members whom the council had formerly excluded. Sir Arthur Hazelrig and some others, whom Cromwell had created lords, rather chose to take their seat with the commons. An incontestable majority now declared themselves against the protector; and they refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of that other house which he had established. Even the validity of the humble petition and advice was questioned, as being voted by a parliament which lay under force, and which was deprived by military violence of a considerable number of its members. The protector, dreading combinations between the parliament and the malecontents in the army, resolved to allow no leisure for forming any conspiracy against him; and, with expressions of great displeasure, he dissolved the parliament. When urged by Fleetwood and others of his friends not to precipitate himself into this rash measure, he swore by the living God that they should not sit a moment longer.