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III. The Good Old Cause and the Fall of the Protectorate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

A. H. Woolrych
A. H. Woolrych
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Modern History, University of Leeds
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Extract

If any single turn of events condemned the Great Rebellion to its final collapse and made the Restoration ultimately inevitable, it surely took place that April night in 1659 when the regiments about London gathered at St James's in defiance of Richard Cromwell, ‘unanimusly crieing up the good ould cause And A Comanwealth, and noe single person’. The coup d'état which virtually ended the Protectorate left England at the mercy of the military grandees who had headed it and the Republican politicians who meant to profit by it. Both groups found themselves sunk too low in credit to erect a new regime in place of the one they destroyed, and after exposing their political bankruptcy for half a year longer they finally committed political suicide by quarrelling between themselves.

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Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , 1957 , pp. 133 - 161
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1957

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References

1 Clarke Papers, ed. C. H. Firth (London, 1899–1901), III, 213.

2 Richard Baxter and the French ambassador Bordeaux both remarked the acceptance it found among Presbyterian and even erstwhile Royalist gentry (Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. M. Sylvester, London, 1696, 100; F. G. P. Guizot, History of Richard Cromwell and the Restoration of Charles II, trans. A. R. Scoble, London, 1856, 1, 234). Their observations are confirmed by the debates in Richard's parliament.

3 G. Davies, ‘The army and the downfall of Richard's Protectorate’ in Huntington Library Bulletin, VII (1935), 131–67; and his [The] Restoration [of Charles II] (San Marino, Calif., ch. v.

4 In his The Re-pubhcans and others spurious Good Old Cause, [briefly and truly anatomized], [13 May] 1659, E 983(6) Here and in subsequent references, dates given in square brackets are those assigned by Thomason, and press-marks are those of copies in the Thomason Collection in the British Museum.

5 Reprinted in Somers Tracts, ed. Sir Scott, W. (London, 1809–1815), VI, 303f.Google Scholar

6 Firth, C H., [The] Last Years [of the Protectorate] (London, 1909), I, 209Google Scholar, Brown, L. F., The Political Activities of the Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men in England during the Interregnum (Washington, 1912), 108.Google Scholar

7 C. H. Firth, op. cit. I, 155.

8 To the Parliament. The Petition of diverse Citizens of London, [25 Jan.] 1658, described and discussed by C. H. Firth, op. cit. 11, 3if. and G. Davies, Restoration, 57–8.

9 Firth, C. H. and Davies, G., Regimental History [of Cromwell's Army] (Oxford, 1940), I, 72–4. Thurloe's two contemporary accounts of the episode carry much more conviction than Packer's tale of oppression in the 1659parliament ([Diary of Thomas] Burton, ed. J.T.Rutt (London, 1828), in, 165–6), though this and other speeches of Packer's throw light on the mentality of those officers who revolted against the Protectorate after years of apparent loyalty.Google Scholar

10 Guizot, op. cit. 1, 248, 271, 273–4; State Papers Collected by Edward, Earl of Clarendon, ed. R. Scrope and T. Monkhouse (Oxford, 1767–86), III, 421, 423, 441; Cal[endar of the] Clarendon S[tate] P[apers], IV, ed. F. J. Routledge(Oxford, 1932), III, 118, Lucy Hutchinson, Life of Colonel Hutchinson, ed. C. H. Firth (London, 1906), 304–5.

11 Register of the Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh, ed. Stephen, W. (Edinburgh, 1921–1930), II, 153; Reliquiae Baxtertanae, 101; Guizot, op. cit. 1, 252–3; Prynne, The Republicans and others spurious Good Old Cause, 3.Google Scholar

12 [Collected State Papers of John] Thurloe, ed. Birch, T. (London, 1742), VII, 436, 452; Clarke Papers, III, 165; H[istorical] M[anuscripts] C[ommission], 5th Report, Appendix, 172. There was also a very hostile reaction—not by Fleetwood, but by Desborough and the more open malcontents—to rumours that Henry Cromwell was to be recalled from Ireland (Thurloe, VII, 450–1, 462, 490, 511, 528; Sir Francis Russell to Henry Cromwell, 5 Oct. and 2 Nov. B[ritish] M[useum] Lansdowne MSS. 823). This may have been due to a fear that Henry himself was to be made Commander-m-Chief (Cal[endar of] S[tate] P[apers], Ven[etian], 1657–9, 257), which would explain Richard's assurances that no other commander would be set up over Fleetwood's head (Thurloe, VII, 497).Google Scholar

13 Thurloe, VII, 454.

14 Ibid. 460–1. The elaborate rhetoric of this letter and its presence among Thurloe's papers suggest that it may not have been produced for Fleetwood alone, but for general circulation among the officers in London.

15 Ibid. 415, 507, 528; Cal. S.P. Ven. 1657–9, 239, 255.

16 Guizot, op. cit. I, 253; Thurloe, VII, 528.

17 B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 823, fos. 141, 147; Clarke Papers, III, 166–7. See Davies, Restoration, 37–40, for the outbreak which prompted Richard's solemn warning to the officers not to make their gatherings for devotion a pretext for sedition.

18 See his letter of self-justification to Henry Cromwell in Thurloe, VII, 500; cf. Guizot, op. cit I, 251.

19 Thurloe, VII, 581.

20 Ibid. 541; Guizot, op. cit. I, 314–15.

21 XXV Queries [ Modestly and Humbly propounded to the People of England], reprinted in [The] Harl[eian] Misc[ellany], ed T. Park (1808–13), IX, 424f.

22 Burton, III, 76–82; Cal. Clarendon S P IV, 147.

23 XXV Queries, IX, XII, XIX, XXIII.

24 [Memoirs of Edmund] Ludlow, ed. Firth, C. H. (Oxford, 1894), II, 50; Thurloe, VII, 550.Google Scholar

25 Burton, III, 152–5, 289–95. Professor L. F. Brown (op. cit. 17) remarks the significance of Kiffin's sponsoring of this petition after his previous support of the Protectorate. Two years earlier Christopher Feake had denounced him as a ‘courtier’ for defending the government against Fifth Monarchist attacks (Abbott, W. C., Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (Cambridge, Mass., 1937–1947), IV, 379).Google Scholar

26 Burton, III, 306–7, 494–8.

27 Guizot, op cit I,304; Thurloe, VII, 612, Cal. Clarendon S P. IV, 148; Clarendon SP III,426. Lambert, who consistently sided with the Republicans in this parliament, had drawn the House's special attention to the clause in the citizens’ petition asking that no officers should be dismissed except by court-martial.

28 Guizot, op. cit. I, 306–8; Mabbott newsletter, 15 Feb., B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 823; Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 150–2, 158. There was little to be feared from the committee of officers which was set up ‘to consider of something, in case itt might bee seasonable to offer any thinge to the Parliament', for the commonwealthsmen on it were balanced by Whalley (a staunch Cromwellian) and Fleetwood and Desborough (now reconciled with Richard), see Clarke Papers, III, 182–3. This was not the same committee (as Firth implies on p. XXVI of his introduction)as the one which drafted the Humble Representation and Petition of 6 April; cf.Ibid. 187.

29 ‘The protector allready relyes upon the great officers of the army, and the republicans on the under officers, more than upon the votes of either party. But it is thought the protector will be mistaken in some of those he relyes upon, if the other party appears any whit considerable’ (Dr Barwick to Hyde, 16 Feb., in Thurloe, VII, 615).

30 (Guizot, op. cit. I, 315.

31 By ‘S.R. H.W. R.P.’ [26 Feb.], E968(8).

32 By Fitz-Brian, R., [16 Feb.], E968(6); omitted by oversight from Fortescue's, G. K. Catalogue of the Thomason Tracts (London, 1908). Together with The Leveller it is reported to have been eagerly read by sectaries in Scotland (Thurloe, VII, 627).Google Scholar

33 A Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (so called), [29 Apr.], E977(3), 39–40. This new edition of a tract first published in 1658 added a lengthy Postscript, written c. Jan. 1659 (judging from the references to Portman's imprisonment on pp. 47–8), and a briefer ‘Third Narrative’ written when Richard's parliament had been in session for some weeks. Coming after the original text's eulogies of Hesilrige, Vane, Bradshaw and others, the Postscript with its note of religious fanaticism further exemplifies the alignment between Republicans and sectaries. It lamented (p. 38) that some ‘that once spake the language of Zion, and highly appeared for the Good Old Cause’ had become ‘so besotted and degenerated into a self seeking slavish, and enslaving Spirit’ as to return to Egypt, and t he rule of a single person— a charge plainly levelled at Wallingford House.

34 [2 March], E968(II).

35 Ch. I, passim. Here too the Protector's ‘negative voice’ and control of the militia were condemned as badges of monarchical tyranny.

36 Chs. III and V.

37 Ch. VII, 30f. The preface summarizes the cause as ‘the bringing of all things in Earth to answer the minde of God’, a process to be carried through by degrees and perfected by the coming of Christ as King. All this is close to Vane's thought in The Retired Mans Meditations (London, 1655) and A Needful Corrective or Ballance in Popular Government (London, 1659).

38 P. 27.

39 ‘A Word to the Reader’ (unpaged, following preface).

40 [3 March], E972(5); published anonymously, but acknowledged by Rogers in his Διαπολιτεíα (London, 1659), 69.

41 Pp. 13–15. He also cited the Levellers’ Case of the Army Truly Stated (p. 13) and urged the enactment of a ‘law paramount’ that government by parliaments should be unalterable.Later he attacked Harrington in his Διαπολιτεíα but still continued to borrow from him.

42 The Plain Case of the Common-Weal, 31.

43 Διαπολιτεíα 64; cf. 59f. Though dated by Thomason 20 Sept. 1659, the preface is dated 14 July, and on p. 124 Rogers confirms that it was written before Booth's rising.

44 Ibid. 76–7. Rogers now praised Hesilrige, Scot, Bradshaw, Ludlow, Fleetwood, Lambert and others whom he had once reckoned as adversaries (15–16), but his great hero was Vane, and he acknowledged his debt to A Healing Question (17–25, 41–3). Professor L. F. Brown (op. cit. 187–8) made the interesting suggestion that Rogers learned a more rational political outlook from Vane his fellow prisoner at Carisbrooke in 1656, but while this may have been the long-term result of their association, Rogers's Jegar-Sahadutha (published in July 1657)was still as crudely chiliastic as ever.

45 John Canne is another example (below, p. 155). See Firth, Last Years, 1, 207–8, 212–13 for evidence that even in 1656 many once militant Fifth Monarchists were being absorbed into peaceable Baptist congregations.

46 The Cause of God and of these Nations, ch. 1; The Plain Case of the Common-Weal, 15; The Sad Suffering Case of Major-General Rob. Overton…By J. R. (John Rogers ?), [3 March], E972(4). Overton had been arrested at the end of 1654 for his suspected complicity in plans for a military insurrection in Scotland.

47 Clarke Papers, III, 184; Guizot.op.cit. I, 336; Cal. S.P. Ven. 1657–9, 298; Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 160.

48 Burton, III, 145 (Ludlow), 205 (Reynolds), 588 (Col. Morley), 590 (Col. White); IV, 34–7 (Scot), 48 (Chaloner), 51 (Ashley Cooper), 78 (Hesilrige), etc., etc.

49 Ibid, III, 443; IV, 293.

50 Ibid, III, 27.

51 Ibid, III, 58 and note; cf. IV, 139–43, 365, 450. These expressions of concern for the army's pay and reputation involved no corresponding interest in the financial measures which alone could satisfy the soldiers’ needs; indeed Lord Aungier, who claimed to have access to Republican counsels, alleges that they deliberately obstructed such measures, as a means of further discrediting the government (B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 823, fo. 289).

52 Burton III, 61; cf. 454, 473–5, 491–2.

53 Clarendon S.P. III, 424–5; Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 148, 172, 175. Hesilrige ostentatiously sat next to Fairfax in the house (Burton, III, 57; IV, 253); see also Ibid. III, 370–6; IV, 283.

54 Thomason collected no anti-government tracts between Richard's accession and 15 Feb. 1659 (though several seemed to have escaped him in Nov.-Dec. 1658: see Guizot, op. cit I,262, 270 and Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 119), and only one between 3 March and 20 April.

55 Burton, III, 101, cf. the same speaker on 12 March, ‘we are here brought undoubtedly upon the same foundation, as clear as any Parliament these many hundred years’ (Ibid. IV,196). Ludlow's implication (Memoirs, II, 50) that the Republicans did not at the time acknowledge this to be a lawful parliament is belied by the record of the debates.

56 Burton, III, 105 (Hesilrige), 112, 219–21 (Scot), 318–20 (Vane), 190–1, 231–2 (Lambert), 134–5 (Nevile), 142 (Weaver), 263 (Chaloner) and many other speeches. Cf. Guizot, op cit I, 302, XXV Queries (Harl. Misc. IX, 430); Slingsby Bethel, A true and impartial Narrative of the late Parliament (Somers Tracts, VI, 486). An interesting draft of the sort of modified Protectorate which moderate Republicans would accept was offered in An Expedient for the Preventing anv Differences between his Highness and the Parliament, [26 Feb.] 1659, reprinted in Harl. Misc. V, 333f.

57 Col. Gorges on 15 Feb. defined the terms, generally consonant with the spirit of the Humble Petition and Advice, on which, ‘after much working upon’, the army would accept the Protector's authority and the two-chamber parliament (B M Lansdoune MSS 823, fo. 227).

58 Clarke Papers, III, 210, Thurloe, VII, 636; Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh, II,153; Clarendon S.P. III, 432.

59 Thurloe, VII, 609; Cal. S.P. Ven. 1659–61, 8–9.

60 Capt. Langley twice commented on the speed and accuracy with which the sectaries in Scotland were kept informed of proceedings in parliament (Thurloe, VII, 627, 834).

61 Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 140–1, 142, 143, 176; H.M.C. 10th Report, Appendix VI, 194. Pamphlets exploited the fear of such a move: e.g. XXV Queries (Harl. Misc. IX, 426–7, 429); A Call to the Officers of the Army; The Cause of God and of these Nations, ch. 1.

62 Burton, III, 125, 131, 158–9, 181.

63 Clarke Papers, III, 211.

64 E.g. Burton, IV, 40, 64.

65 Sir Richard Baker (continued by E. Phillips), Chronicle [of the Kings of England] (1670),659; G. Davies (art. cit.) cites further evidence of such fears in Huntington Library Bulletin, VII, 162.

66 Davies, Restoration, 65–6. This was after 21 March, when Burton twice noted the words ‘fag end’ (IV, 209, 221–3); but they had been used in the House as early as 7 Feb. (B.M.Lansdowne MSS. 823, fo. 208).

67 Burton, IV, 42–6, 148, 249–53.

68 ‘Go thy way, Dick Ingoldsby, thou canst neither preach nor pray, but I will believe thee before I will believe twenty of them.’ See Davies, Restoration, 64–5.

69 Burton, III 417, 527–8; IV, 33, 65, 277, 283, etc.; B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 823, fos. 241,243. 245. 247.

70 Ludlow, II, 63–5. Though Ludlow's chronology is often unreliable, his narrative here gives the sequence of events quite clearly. Kelsey's first visit to Ludlow evidently preceded by several days the order summoning the General Council of Officers, which first met on 2 April. Bordeaux on 31 March (O.S.) reported that certain high officers, including some in the Other House, were joining with the Republicans to get the command of the army separated from the civil government.

71 Clarke Papers, III, 211.

72 Burton, in, 406–8, 439–41, 456–7; IV, 266–8, 405.

73 Bordeaux, writing on 24 Feb., momentarily thought he saw such a change taking place (Guizot, op. cit. I, 317).

74 Cf. his machinations against Oliver's acceptance of the crown (Ludlow, II, 25).

75 J. Owen, The Glory and Interest of Nations professing the Gospel (London, 1659). Mr Davies (Restoration, 95–6) describes this sermon under the impression that Owen preached it before the Rump on 8 May, but the original edition (p. 1) describes it as ‘Preached within the Commons-House of Parliament, at a Fast by them solemnly held upon the 4 of February 1658’(i.e. 1658/9).

76 Annesley to Henry Cromwell, 15 March, B.M. Lansdowne MSS, 823, fo. 251; Sharp to Douglas, 8 March, Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh, II, 158. Only Sharp names Lambert among the members of this congregation, which he says was erected ‘upon a state project’. 77 Reliquiae Baxterianae, 101.

78 Cromwell a year earlier and Monck a year later showed what could be done.

79 . Ludlow, II, 64–5, 74 (where the marginal date should be 2 May: Clarke Papers, IV, 3n. 3).Scot boasted in the Commons on 18 April that he had never been either to Wallingford House or to Whitehall since parliament met (Burton, IV, 453).

80 Ludlou, II, 66–7.

81 The names of the committee are in Clarke Papers, III 187; the petition is printed in the old Parliamentary [or Constitutional] History [of England], XXI (1763), 340–5. According to The Publick Intelligencer for 4–11 April it was subscribed by every officer in and about London.

82 England's Confusion [by Arthur Annesley?], reprinted in Somers Tracts, VI, 518. Apprehension that the cause was about to be betrayed into the hands of Charles Stuart was further emphasized in an address to Fleetwood and the General Council, in support of their Humble Representation, subscribed by 655 junior officers and soldiers of the late Col. Pride's regiment (reprinted without the signatures in Burton, IV, 388–9).

83 A true Copie of a Paper delivered to Lt. G. Fleetwood [on] 26 April (1659), E979(4).

84 Text in old Parliamentary History, XXI, 321–4. Vane, Hesilrige and other republicans vehemently opposed this ill-timed threat to liberty of conscience (Burton, IV, 300, 329–33, 335–45), which occasioned two lengthy debates and probably prompted the strong vindication of freedom of worship at the end of the officers' Humble Representation. Baron wrote to Hyde that it had ‘put life again into the Commonwealth's men, and they insinuate into the Army, and tell them “the Court party intend to force their consciences again, and to set up tyranny'” (Clarendon S.P. III, 456).

85 Burton, IV, 402.

86 Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh, 164, 168.

87 Burton, IV, 440–6; Davies, Restoration, 28.

88 The Attorney-General and other government speakers contended that parliament could only proceed against Boteler by impeachment, involving his trial before the Other House (Burton IV, 408).

89 Burton, IV, 450. Mr Davies saw in the contrast between the Republicans' attack on Boteler and their defence of the General Council of Officers six days later an inconsistency which was to be explained by their supposed negotiations with the army leaders in the interval (Restoration, 80). It is more simply accounted for by their habitual practice of distinguishing between the wicked grandees and the honest junior officers. Such negotiations as there were began (so far as we know) at least a fortnight before the debate on Boteler, and Hesilrige's hint on the 18th that the command of the army might be put in commission does not suggest any close agreement with Wallingford House (Burton, IV, 450).

90 Ibid. 454; cf. Mr Lobb, p. 457.

91 Ibid. 457. Cf. Col. Terrill's defence of the officers' right to choose their masters (p. 455).

92 Anthony Morgan to Henry Cromwell, 12 April, B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 823, fo. 293; Baker, 659.

93 Mr Davies accepts Thomas Morrice's story that Lord Broghil successfully prevented the imposition of such a test. But the contemporary testimony of Gilbert Mabbott (Clarke Papers, III, 189–90; B.M. Lansdown MSS. 823, fo. 299), Dr Barwick (Thurloe, VII, 662) and Bordeaux (Guizot, op. cit. I, 362–4) is that the ‘attestation’ was accepted in principle, and that a committee of officers was preparing a document for discussion and final acceptance by the General Council on the 20th. The officers are reported to have further intended to demand from parliament a vindication of the king's execution and those responsible for it, and an affirmation of the validity of all public acts since then.

94 Though in fact supporters of the government only contended that the control of the forces should lie with the Protector and the two Houses jointly (Burton, IV, 472 f.).

95 Declaration of 22 April 1653, in Gardiner, S. R., Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1906), 401; cf. A Declaration of the Armie…for the dissolving of this present Parliament, [10 Aug.] 1652, E673(13).Google Scholar

96 Clarke Papers, III, 210.

97 Ibid. 196, Thurloe, VII, 666–7, The Nicholas Papers, ed. G. F. Warner (1886–1920), IV, 122, 124, Clarendon S.P. III, 460; Cal. Clarendon S.P IV, 191–4; Guizot, op cit I, 374, 379; Cal. S.P. Ven. 1659–61,, 14, 16–17.

98 Some bore a family likeness which betrayed their common origin, for instance the three broadsheets numbered in the Thomason Collection 669. fo. 21 (24, 26 and 28), all printed by John Clowes for Livewell Chapman, who published so much of this anti-Cromwellian literature that his share of responsibility for the change of government may well have been considerable.

99 Mercurius Democritus, also briefly revived at this time, divided its first issue (26 April-3 May) oddly between ribald anecdotes, foreign news, and extracts from the political addresses of pious commonwealthsmen.

100 Some Reasons Humbly Proposed to the Officers of the Army, for the speedy Re-admission of the Long Parliament, [28 April], E979(8).

101 The Humble Representation of divers well-affected Persons of the City of Westminster, E979(5), presented to Fleetwood on 25 April.

102 [2 May], E980(7), reprinted a few days later with an abusive marginal gloss by an anonymous Royalist (E980(18)).

103 Clarke Papers, IV, 4–6.

104 A faithful Memorial of that remarkable Meeting…at Windsor Castle, [27 April] reprinted in Somers Tracts VI, 498–504.

105 The Petition and Advice of divers well-affected to the Good Old Cause, inhabitants…of Southuark, 27 April, E980(1).

106 Dated 20 April; E979(1).

107 The Humble Remonstrance of the Non-Commission Officers and Private Soldiers of Major General Goffs Regiment, 26 April, E979(6). On the 21st the regiment had defied Goffe's order to proceed to Whitehall and had marched instead to the general rendezvous at St James's (Firth and Davies, Regimental History, I, 332–3). Richard Cromwell himself attests how on that night ‘corporals led troops from their captains and captains from their colonels’ (B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 823, fos. 371–2).

108 A Seasonable Word, Or, certain Reasons Against A Single Person, [5 May], E980(17).

109 [4 May], E980(15).

110 Thurloe, VII, 666.

111 Ludlow, II, 75–6. They lacked the bargaining power to exact any definite terms from the Rump before its resumed sitting, but pressed the select senate again as one of ’the Fundamentals of our good old Cause’ in the Humble Petition and Address which they presented to the House on 13 May (old Parliamentary History, XXI, 404). Its non-implementation remained a grievance and contributed to their next violation of the parliament in October.

112 Published anonymously and undated, and not in the Thomason Collection. It was written in reply to Harrington's Prerogative of Popular Government, but probably a considerable time after that work first appeared in Nov. 1657. Richard Baxter did not refer to it in his attack on Vane in A Key for Catholics (dated by Thomason 1 Feb. 1659), but stated in the ‘Addition to the Preface’ to his Holy Commonwealth (dated July by Thomason and entered at Stationers Hall on 22 June 1659) that he had acquired it very recently, at the same time as a tract by Harrington which is clearly A Discourse upon The Spirit of the Nation (dated by Harrington 16 May 1659). As to Vane's authorship, Anthony Wood affirms it (Athenae Oxonenses, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1721), II, 295), Baxter assumed it confidently, and style, tone and matter all confirm it. The Bodleian copy is inscribed in a contemporary hand ‘This was writt by Sr. Hen. Vane or (at least) by his advise, and approbation’, Vane's protégé Henry Stubbe was Under-Keeper of the Bodleian at the time.

113 Vane does not seem to have championed the senate openly, but the probability that he continued to favour it is strengthened by the strenuous advocacy devoted to it by Henry Stubbe, whom he had helped through Westminster School and into a studentship at Christ Church, and who later admitted that his copious political writings during 1659 were mainly prompted bv gratitude to his patron (D.N.B.; Wood, Ath. Oxon. II, 562; cf. Madan, F., Oxford Books, III (Oxford, 1931), 96–7). Stubbe vindicated Vane in Malice Rebuked (dated 20 April 1659) against Baxter's aspersions, elaborated the proposal for a senate in the long preface to his Essay in Defence of the Good Old Cause (dated 4 July 1659), and finally developed it exhaustively in A Letter to an Officer of the Army concerning a Select Senate. Thomason's copy of the latter is inscribed on the title-page “'A dangerous fellow”; Sr. Henry Vanes Advisor. 8ber. 26'.Google Scholar

114 Bordeaux reported on 6/16 June that one party in the parliament (and he must havemeant Hesilrige's) was working upon the junior officers so as to compel the generals to drop their demand for a senate (Guizot, op cit 1, 407).

115 A Beam of Light, Shining in the midst of much Darkness and Confusion, [2 May], E980(5).

116 Preface, and pp. 32–5, 53, etc.

117 Pp. 47–8.

118 Pp. 53, 57–9

119 A Seasonable Word to the Parliament-Men By John Canne, [10 May], E983(1). Canne reminded the members outspokenly of the shortcomings which had led to their earlier expulsion and told them they would not be back in power had not the saints first shaken the Protectorate's foundations.

120 Commons Journals, VII, 652.

121 ‘The Lord hath a work to do‘a great work, and he will not want Instruments. Ye have a time of tryal, whether ye will become fit Instruments in the hand of the Lord’ (To the Parliament, the Army, and all the wel-affected in the Nation, who have been faithful to the Good Old Cause, 18 May, E983(21)).

122 A true Copie of a Paper delivered to Lt. G. Fleetwood, 26 April, E979(4), held forth Barebone's Parliament as a model for a new settlement. The Thomason Catalogue's attribution of this tract to the Quakers is most improbable, its tone is more Fifth Monarchist. A Faithful Remembrance from divers in Cornwall and Devon [4 May], E980(16), though less definite, pointed the same way.

123 Clarke Papers, IV, 21. Other reports of agitation for a council (or sanhedrin) of seventy are in Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 197–8, 211. For the satisfaction with which the Baptists received the recall of the Rump, see L. F. Brown, op. cit. 179–81.

124 The Postscript to A Second Narrative of the Late Parliament denounced them both as cringing court-chaplains (p. 42). Thomas Goodwin had played a significant part in securing Richard's peaceful accession, and had presented an address of loyalty from over a hundred congregational churches (Davies, Restoration, 3–4, 10; see also Pinto, V. de S., Peter Sterry, Platonist and Puritan (Cambridge, 1934), 35–9).Google Scholar

125 Reliquiae Baxtenianae, 101–2.

126 Somers Tracts, VI, 525–6, see also Stearns, R. P., The Strenuous Puritan Hugh Peter 1598–1660 (Urbana, III. 1954), 408–10.Google Scholar

127 Baker, Chronicle, 660, Ludlou, II, 74, Commons Journals, VII, 646.

128 The Diary of Sir Archtbald Johnston of Wanston, III, ed. Ogilvie, J. D. (Edinburgh, 1940), 107–8. For Owen's own denials that he was instrumental in Richard's fall and a near-contemporary account of how it distressed him to the point of illness, see the Memoir prefixed to A Complete Collection of the Sermons of John Owen (London, 1721), XIX. The writer, however,like W. Orme (who followed him closely) in his Memoir of John Owen (1820), 276–9, goes much too far in his attempt to clear Owen of all responsibility.Google Scholar

129 Nicholas Papers, IV, 124.

130 Dated by Harrington 2 May; reprinted in The Oceana and other works of James Harrington, ed. J. Toland (1771), 562–6.

131 A Discourse upon This Saving. The Spirit of the Nation is not yet to be trusted with Libertv, dated 16 May, in Works, 567–74.

132 He further widened the distance between himself and the more typical Republicans in A Discourse shewing that the Spirit of Parliaments, with a Council in the Intervals, is not to be trusted for a Settlement, dated 21 July, in Works, 575–9.

133 The Armies Dutie, or, Faithfull Advice to the Souldiers. Two letters written unto Lord Fleetwood, [2 May], E980(12) Appended to the preface are the initials H. M., H. N., I. L., I. W., I. I., S. M., conjectural identifications are offered by Russell, H. F. Smith in Harrington and his Oceana (Cambridge, 1914), 87 and by Mr Maurice Ashlev in john Wildman (1947), 138, but the only ones I find fully convincing are of H. N. as Henry Neville and I. W. as Wildman. It is implied on p. 11 that the first letter was written shortly before the army's address to the Protector of 18 Sept. 1658 and the second not long after. The ‘last parliament’ referred to on p. 23 is evidently that of 1656–8, yet some passages, notably one on pp. 24–5 which tells Fleetwood that he has it in his power to settle what is necessary for a commonwealth, ‘all present forms being broken by you, and an absolute necesssity upon you to appoint what shall be next’, seem inappropriate to any situation before 22 April 1659. Possibly a letter written earlier was expanded and embellished for publication after that date. There are two MS.summaries of the second letter in the Bodleian Library (MS Clarendon 59, fo. 145 (see note in Cal. Clarendon S P IV, 193) and MS. Raulinson A62, fo. 401, both undated), which suggest that it had some circulation before it was printed.Google Scholar

134 P. 25; cf. Neville's outspoken condemnation of the Rump in Richard's parliament (Burton, III, 134).

135 The sectaries' objections to Harrington are fully stated by John Rogers in Διαπολιτεíα 70–85.

136 Clarendon S.P. III, 430–2; dismissed by Hyde as ‘extravagant demaunds’ (Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 158 n. 1).

137 The Leveller is reprinted in Harl. Misc. IV, 543–50. Mr Ashley makes a good case for Wildman's authorship in his John Wildman, 136–7. By this time the term ‘Levellers’ was sometimes loosely used to signify the humbler commonwealthsmen in general, just as hostile writers often branded all kinds of sectaries collectively as Anabaptists (e.g. in Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 221; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, ed. Macray, W. D. (Oxford, 1888), Book XVI,169). 138 [2 May], E980(II).Google Scholar

139 During the summer and autumn of 1659 a striking number of pamphlets revived the old Leveller demand for the decentralization of Justice through the erection of popular courts in every county or hundred.

140 [2 May], E980(8).

141 An Observation and Comparison between the Idolatrous Israelites and Judges of England by H.N., [25 May], E983(29). Other slightly later pamphlets of a Leveller cast include Lilburne's Ghost, [22 June], E988(9); Samuel Duncon's Several Proposals, [6 July], E989(9), and particularly Speculum Libertatis Angltae re restitutae, [13 July], E989(19).

142 Davies, Restoration, 89. Mr Davies suggests the solution in his next sentence.

143 This precariousness did not disappear with the Rump's return to power (Cal. Clarendon S.P. IV, 206, 224; Guizot.op cit 1,407,412); and for the next six weeks numerous pamphlets continued to exhibit varying degrees of hostility towards all officers who had served the Protectorate. See Harl. Misc. IV, 192–6, IX, 422–4; and in the Thomason Collection E983(3),[12 May]; E983(18), [18 May]; E984(1), [26 May]; E986(6), [13 June]; E986(14), [14 June]; E988(9), [22 June].

144 The Re-publicans and others spurious Good Old Cause, I.

145 Few challenged the good old cause in print before the middle of May, and most of those who did, if they rose above the mere ridicule and abuse offered by Certain Queries upon the Dissolving of the Late Parliament, [3 May], E980(14), turned to the Long Parliament's pronouncements during the Civil War to show what the original cause really had been; they wanted to put the clock back to before 1648 rather than to 1649–53. This line was adumbrated by Col. Birch in Richard's parliament (Burton, IV, 61–2) and followed by Prynne in The true Good Old Cause rightly stated (dated 30 April by Thomason and wrongly catalogued under 13 May; Thomason's ascription of it to Prynne is confirmed by Nicholas Papers, IV, 145) and The Re-publicans and others spurious Good Old Cause, and by the author of Englands Confusion.

146 Edward Johnson, in An Examination of the Essay: or, an Answer to the Fifth Monarchy (1659), made it a taunt that many Fifth Monarchists had once been leading disciples of John Lilburne. This tract, of which Wing's Short-Title Catalogue records no copy in England, is in the Brotherton Collection in the University of Leeds.

147 Clarke Papers, IV, 4–6. Cf. Nehemiah Bourne's assertion that ‘there is not a man living who can in the least Challeng a share’ in the change of government, ‘whose contriuer and Acter was onely the lord’ (Ibid, III, 209–10).

148 Old Parliamentary History, XXI, 367–8.