over the Report, ending in a division, on the last of the five days, on the first clause or paragraph only. For the Yeas there voted fifty-four, with Colonels Sydenham and Jones for their tellers, and for the Noes fifty-six, with Colonels Danvers and James for their tellers. Thus, though only by two votes in a House which had re-mustered in its fullest strength for so important a battle, the Report was thrown out, and the Conservative policy on the subject of a National Church, and generally of ways and means for the Propagation of the Gospel, was defeated.1 Cromwell, there is sufficient proof, had come by this time to be in sympathy essentially with the Conservative policy on the Church question. He shrank from the idea of leaving England and Wales without an Established Church, or settled ministry paid by the State; he saw no security for the maintenance and propagation of the Gospel otherwise; and his definite ideal had come to be a State-Church that should comprehend Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and pious men of all sound evangelical sects, and leave an ample or universal toleration of Dissent round about it. The vote of Saturday, Dec. 10, showing a House divided into two halves on this vital question, must therefore have confirmed the dissatisfaction with the House generally that had been already growing in his mind. The Little Parliament, with all its merits, had run aground. It had taxed its whole strength on the Church question, with a result that could not be accepted as decisive one way or the other; and, if it were to exist longer, it could only be by shelving the question altogether. That could not be; the House itself could not think of that; the country would go mad if that were attempted what then was to be done? Though nominally a member of the House, and on some of its chief Committees, Cromwell had, with due regard to the extraordinary relations between it and himself, abstained from interference with its proceedings and left it independent. By his Instrument constituting it, he had empowered it to sit 1 Commons Journals of dates. till Nov. 3, 1654, and had abjured the right of dissolving it, or even the successor it might appoint. From this difficulty Cromwell was relieved. Through the Sunday, Dec. 11, during which he must have been meditating it, Mr. Speaker Rous and others of the House were meditating it too; and on Monday the 12th their conclusion came to light. On that day, as soon as the Speaker had taken the Chair, Colonel Sydenham, the leader of the defeated Conservative minority of Saturday, made a speech to the effect that the House was now useless, that he and others could have no comfort in belonging to it, and that for the good of the Commonwealth it ought to resign its trust. The motion having been seconded by one or two others, with references to the Tithes question, several speakers rose to protest against such language, and maintain the fitness of the House for much good work yet. In this dilemma, on some signal given him, Mr. Rous did his part. Rising from the chair, and making the Serjeant-at-Arms shoulder the mace, he walked out of the House, followed by his adherents. The accounts of their number vary. One says that about eighty members went with Rous, leaving about thirty disconsolate in the House,in which case not only must the House have been again at its fullest, but some twenty of the majority of Saturday must have been glad to be released from farther membership. Another account, however, gives about seventy as the total number present, and makes the secessionists about onehalf only. Cromwell's word and an entry in the Commons Journals may be taken for the fact that more than one-half of those present waited on him immediately after leaving the House, and Cromwell's word alone for the fact that he did not know till that moment on what errand they had come. It was to deliver to Cromwell a signed paper, resigning back into his hands the trust with which he had vested them five months before. And so, on the 12th of December, 1653, "the Little Parliament " was at an end. It is generally remembered now with mere ridicule by that nickname of "The Barebones Parliament" which the English Royalists cleverly succeeded in affixing to it, and which will probably remain its distinguishing name for ever in English History. The Scottish Presbyterians had another nickname for it. Immediately after its dissolution they spoke of it as the "Daft Little Parliament." Yet, these nicknames notwithstanding, it was a very memorable Parliament, a convention of really enormous consequence. In a body of 144 persons, consisting of the most forward spirits, the most Cromwellian spirits, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, there had been publicly raised, as the paramount questions even then for the entire community of the British Islands, those questions of Disestablishment, Disendowment, and the utter abolition of a State-clergy, or even a Professional Clergy, which have maintained an existence, though a smothered one, in British politics ever since, and of which we have not yet seen the final explosion. About one-half of that little Assembly of politicians in the year 1653 were prepared, there and then, for Disestablishment to the utmost, or at least for a policy tending generally in that direction; and it was because the other half shuddered at the prospect, and some of those who had voted for it began also to shudder on second thoughts, that the Assembly was broken up, and stronger hands were called to the helm.1 What followed the dissolution of the Little Parliament is soon told. The Council of Officers having been summoned by Cromwell as the only power de facto, there were dialogues and deliberations, ending in the clear conclusion that the method of headship in a "Single Person" for his whole life must now be tried in the Government of the Commonwealth, and that Cromwell must be that "Single Person." The title of King was actually proposed; but, as there were objections to that, Protector was chosen as a title familiar in English History, and of venerable associations. Accordingly, Cromwell having consented, and all preparations having been made, he was, on Friday, Dec. 16, in a great assembly of civic, judicial, and military dignitaries, solemnly sworn and installed in the Chancery Court, Westminster Hall, as LORD PROTECTOR 1 Cromwell's subsequent speeches; Commons Journals, Dec. 12, 1653; Parl. Hist. III. 1414-1416; Godwin, III. 578-592; Blair's Life, 311. OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND. There were some of his adherents hitherto who did not like this new elevation of their hero, and forsook him in consequence, regarding any experiment of the Single Person method in Government as a treason to true Republicanism and Cromwell's assent to it as unworthy of him. Among these was Harrison. Lambert, on the other hand, had been the main agent in the change, and took a conspicuous part in the installation-ceremony. In fact, pretty generally throughout the country, and even among the Presbyterians, the elevation of Cromwell to some kind of sovereignty had come to be regarded as an inevitable necessity of the time, the only possible salvation of the Commonwealth from the anarchy, or wild and experimental idealism, in matters civil and religious, which had been the visible drift at last of the Barebones or Daft Little Parliament.1 1 Carlyle's Cromwell, II. 369-372; Baillie, III. 289. CHAPTER II. MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP FROM APRIL 20 TO DEC. 16, 1653. MILTON'S APPROVAL OF CROMWELL'S COUP D'ETAT: A PRINTED STITUTE: FOUR MORE STATE LETTERS OF MILTON (NOS. CLAMOR IN THAT Milton approved of Cromwell's coup d'état of April 20, 1653, dissolving the Rump of the Long Parliament, appears abundantly from the sequel of his life, but seems to have been attested expressly at the time. Among the pamphlets of |