nd, was
graciously permitted to retire into the obscurity of private life. The
civil administration of the island devolved on five commissioners, and
the command of the army was given to Ludlow,[c] with the rank of
lieutenant-general of the horse.[2]

But the republican leaders soon discovered that they had not been called
to repose on a bed of roses.[d] The officers at Wallingford House began to
dictate to the men whom they had made their nominal masters, and forwarded
to them fifteen demands, under the modest title of "the things which they
had on their minds," when they restored the long parliament.[3] The house
took them successively into consideration. A committee was appointed to
report the form of government the best calculated to secure the liberties
of the people; the duration of the existing parliament was

[Footnote 1: Carte's Letters, ii. 242. Clar. Pap. 500, 501, 516.]

[Footnote 2: Thurloe, vii. 683, 684. Journals, June 14, 27, July 4, 17.
Henry Cromwell resided on his estate of Swinney Abbey, near Sohan, in
Cambridgeshire, till his death in 1674.--Noble, i. 227.]

[Footnote 3: See the Humble Petition and Address of the Officers, printed
by Henry Hills, 1659.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. June 15.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1659. July 6.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1659. July 18.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1659. May 15.]

limited to twelve months; freedom of worship was extended to all believers
in the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Trinity, with the usual exception
of prelatists and papists; and an act of oblivion, after many debates, was
passed, but so encumbered with provisoes and exceptions, that it served
rather to irritate than appease.[1] The officers had requested[a] that
lands of inheritance, to the annual value of ten thousand pounds, should be
settled on Richard Cromwell, and a yearly pension of eight thousand pounds
on her "highness dowager," his mother. But it was observed in the house
that, though Richard exercised no authority, he continued to occupy the
state apartments at Whitehall; and a suspicion existed that he was kept
there as an object of terror, to intimate to the members that the same
power could again set him up, which had so recently brought him down. By
repeated messages, he was ordered to retire; and, on his promise to obey,
the parliament granted him the privilege of freedom from arrest during six
months; transferred his private debts, amounting to twenty-nine thousand
six hundred and forty pou