chief military command in England (Commons' Journals, 21 June 1650). On 22 Oct. 1650 he reviewed the newly raised militia forces in Hyde Park (Mercurius Politicus). In the following March rumours of plots in the north led the council of state to send him to the border. He had under him some 2,500 newly raised horse of doubtful quality (Carlyle, Cromwell, Appendix, 20*; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1651, pp. 92, 102, 149). When Charles II marched into England Harrison received orders from Cromwell ‘to attend the motions of the enemy, and endeavour the keeping of them together, as also to impede his advance’ (Cary, ii. 294). On 13 Aug. 1651 Harrison joined Lambert and the cavalry detached from Cromwell's army at Preston, and made an unsuccessful attempt to stop the royalists on 16 Aug. at Knutsford. After the battle of Worcester, in which he took part, Harrison was charged with the pursuit of the flying royalists, and followed up the victory so energetically and skilfully that very few escaped (Harrison's letters relating to this campaign are printed in State Letters addressed to Oliver Cromwell, 1743, p. 71; Old Parliamentary History, vols. xix., xx.; Cary, Memorials of the Civil War, ii. 295, 300, 373). Like Cromwell, Harrison utilised the victory to recommend the parliament to improve ‘this mercy in establishing the ways of righteousness and justice, yet more relieving the oppressed, and opening a wider door to the publishing the everlasting gospel’ (Cary, ii. 375). His own zeal for justice had been shown in 1650 by procuring the expulsion of Edward Howard, lord Howard of Escrick [q. v.] from parliament for taking bribes (Ludlow, ed. 1751, p. 129). He took part in December 1651 in the conference concerning the settlement of the kingdom arranged by Cromwell, and was one of the promoters of the army petition of 12 Aug. 1652 (Whitelocke, iii. 372). Contemporary evidence represents Harrison as pressing urgently for the dissolution of the Long parliament. Cromwell complained that he was too eager. ‘Harrison,’ he said, ‘is an honest man, and aims at good things, yet from the impatience of his spirit will not wait the Lord's leisure, but hurries me on to that which he and all honest men will have cause to repent’ (Ludlow, Memoirs, ed. 1751, p. 171). Harrison himself some years later explained to Ludlow that he had assisted in the expulsion of the parliament, ‘because he was fully persuaded that they had not a heart to do any more good for the Lord and his people’ (ib. p. 215). He was in his place in the house on 20 April 1653, and spoke against the passing of the act for calling a new representative assembly. He states that he was not previously acquainted with Cromwell's determination to resort to force, but he did not hesitate at Cromwell's bidding to lay hands on the speaker, though he later denied using force to fetch him from the chair (Several Proceedings in Parliament, 14–21, April 1653; Collection of Lives, Speeches, &c. p. 9; Ludlow, p. 173).
Authority was now vested for a time in the hands of a small council of thirteen persons nominated by the officers, and Harrison was president of it during the third week of its existence. Some wished the supreme power to continue in the hands of a council, but Harrison urged that it should be intrusted to an assembly, to consist, like the Jewish ‘sanhedrim,’ of some seventy selected persons (Ludlow, p. 176). This policy was in fact adopted in the summoning of the Barebones parliament, of which Harrison was a co-opted member. Over the majority of that body he exercised great influence, and with its extinction his own political career ended. Roger Williams describes him as head of the party of fifty-six who were for the abolition of priests and tithes, and ‘the second in the nation of late,’ adding, ‘he is a very gallant, most deserving, heavenly man, but most high-flown for the kingdom of the Saints, and the Fifth Monarchy now risen, and their sun never to set again,’ &c. (Knowles, Life of Williams, 1834, p. 261).
Harrison had been one of the council of state elected on 3 Nov. 1653, but was left out of that appointed under the instrument of government in December 1653. Refusing to own the new government he was naturally deprived of his commission, 22 Dec. 1653 (Thurloe, i. 641). He says himself: ‘When I found those that were as the apple of mine eye to turn aside, I did loathe them and suffered imprisonment many years. Rather than to turn as many did that did put their hands to this plough, I chose rather to be separated from wife and family than to have compliance with them, though it was said, “sit at my right hand” and such kind of expressions’ (Trials of the Regicides, p. 50). On 3 Feb. 1654 he was ordered to retire to his father's house in Staffordshire, and not to leave till further order (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1653–4, p. 387). In September 1654 the anabaptists projected presenting a petition to parliament, and Harrison, who was suspected of directing their movements, was for a few days in custody. Cromwell then sent for him, entertained him richly, expostulated with him, and finally dismissed him with a simple admonition ‘not to persevere in those evil ways whose end is destruction’ (Thurloe, ii. 606; Cal. Clarendon Papers, ii. 398). It was often
