Guizot, i. 492; Bernhardi’s Despatch to the Genoese Government, Prayer, p. 85.)
At the moment Cromwell’s conduct in putting an end to the sitting of the Long parliament met with general approval. Some of the royalists cherished the belief that Cromwell would recall Charles II and content himself with a dukedom and the vice-royalty of Ireland (Clarendon State Papers, ii. 208). Others expected him immediately to assume the crown himself, and an enthusiastic partisan set up in the Exchange the picture of Cromwell crowned, with the lines underneath:—
Ascend three thrones, great Captain and divine,
I’ th’ will of God, old Lion, they are thine, &c.
(Tanner MSS. lii. 9.)
Cromwell’s own view was that he, as general of the forces of the three kingdoms duly appointed by act of parliament, was the only constituted authority remaining. His authority he regarded as boundless, but purely provisional. It was necessary for the army leaders to show that they had not turned out the Long parliament for their own ends, ‘not, to grasp at the power ourselves, or to keep it in military hands, no, not for a day.’ The cause of the convocation of the Little parliament was ‘the integrity of concluding to divest the sword of all power in the civil administration’ (Carlyle, Speech i.) The writ by which the members of that assembly were summoned clearly defined the nature of their qualifications and the source of their authority. They were summoned in the name of ‘Oliver Cromwell, captain-general and commander-in-chief,’ ‘nominated by myself and my council of officers,’ as ‘persons fearing God and of approved fidelity and honesty.’ In the speech with which Cromwell made over the supreme authority to this assembly, he expressed the exaggerated hopes with which he regarded it. The great issue of the war had been the calling of God’s people to the government. Godly men had fought the people out of their bondage under the regal power, godly men were now called to rule them (Speech i.) Looking back on this constitutional experiment four years later, Cromwell confessed that the issue was not answerable to the simplicity and honesty of the design, and termed it a story of his weakness and folly (Speech xiii.) The reforming zeal of the Little parliament seemed likely to end in ‘the confusion of all things.’ The policy adopted by it on the ecclesiastical question was fundamentally opposed to the opinions of Cromwell on that point. Cromwell was anxious for the maintenance of a national church, and held the propagation of religion the most important duty of the state; a settled ministry and a settled support for them were therefore essential parts of his scheme.
But the votes of the Little parliament, their abolition of the rights of patrons, and their rejection of the scheme laid before them for the appointment and maintenance of the clergy threatened the very existence of a national church. The conservative section of the republican party and the conservative portion of the assembly itself turned their eyes to Cromwell to deliver them from revolution. On the motion of a staunch Cromwellian, the conservative minority in the Little parliament resolved to render up their powers again to the general from whom they had received them; a certain number of waverers followed their example, and the sittings of the remainder were put an end to by a file of musketeers. ‘I did not know one tittle of that resignation,’ Cromwell told the parliament of 1654, ‘until they all came and brought it, and delivered it into my hands’ (Speech iii.) Cromwell was thus replaced in the position which he had occupied before the meeting of the Little parliament. ‘My power was again by this resignation as boundless and unlimited as before; all things being subjected to arbitrariness, and myself a person having power over the three nations without bound or limit set’ (ib.) In this emergency the council of officers drew up the constitution known as the ‘instrument of government,’ and urged Cromwell to undertake the government under its provisions. The title of king seems from subsequent references to have been offered him (Milton, Defensio Secunda, Prose Works, i. 288, ed. 1853; Burton, Diary, i. 382), but he refused it, and was installed as protector 16 Dec. 1653.
The peculiarity of the new constitution lay in the attempted separation of the executive and legislative powers. The executive power was placed in the hands of the protector, assisted and controlled by a council of state. The power of legislation and taxation was placed in the hands of a parliament whose acts became law without the assent of the Protector, provided they were not contrary to the provisions of the constitution. In the mutual independence of parliament and protector, and the arrangement which made the Protector in some sense the guardian of the constitution against the parliament, lay the seeds of future difficulties. During the abeyance of parliament the Protector and council were empowered to make ordinances which had the force of law until parliament otherwise ordered, and Cromwell made a
