CHAP. III - The Parliament of 1654

Summary

On several occasions during the negotiations with foreign powers, for example with Sweden, the question had been raised by what title Cromwell held his authority. The Queen simply imagined that Cromwell would shortly set the crown upon his head; finally to renounce it in his position would require more than human forbearance. The Chancellor Oxenstiern went deeper into the question: he disliked the mode of Cromwell's elevation to the Protectorate, since it was more or less an election by the power of the sword and of a political faction. That in the new constitution which most pleased him was the security it gave for the maintenance of the existing laws; ‘one thing however,’ he added, ‘is still wanting to the Protector; he must case himself in steel on back and breast.’ ‘What means my father?’ asked Whitelocke of the old man, in the familiarly respectful tone usual in conversation in those days. ‘I mean,’ he replied, ‘the confirmation of the Protectorate by Parliament; that will be his best support. From whom comes the power which he exercises? who binds over the people to obey him?’

These words in fact touched the real point at issue in the whole matter. Cromwell possessed absolute power. He pronounced the old declarations of allegiance to a republican constitution to be no longer binding, and declared on the contrary that it was a state offence to question the lawfulness of his government.