f the laws against Catholic recusants, and fixed the
15th of March for their own dissolution, the 25th of April for the meeting
of a new parliament.[1]

Here, however, a serious difficulty arose. The House of Commons (according
to the doctrine of the secluded members, it could be nothing more) was
but a single branch of the legislature. By what right could it pretend to
summon a parliament? Ought not the House of Lords, the peers who had been
excluded in 1649, to concur? Or rather, to proceed according to law, ought
not the king either to appoint a commission to hold a parliament, as was
usually done in Ireland, or to name a guardian invested with such power,
as was the practice formerly, when our monarchs occasionally resided in
France? But, on this point, Monk was inflexible. He placed guards at the
door of the House of Lords to prevent the entrance of the peers; and he
refused to listen to any expedient which might imply an acknowledgment of
the royal authority. To the arguments urged by others, he replied,[a] that
the parliament according to law determined by the death of Charles I.; that
the present house could justify its sitting on no other ground but that of
necessity, which did not apply to the House of Lords; and that it was in
vain to expect the submission of the army to a parliament called by royal
authority. The military had, with reluctance, consented to the restoration
of

[Footnote 1: Journals, passim.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. March 3.]

the secluded members; and to ask more of them at present was to hazard all
the advantages which had hitherto been obtained.[1]

Encouraged by the downfall of the republicans, the royalists throughout
the country expressed their sentiments without restraint. In some places
Charles was proclaimed by the populace; several ministers openly prayed
for him in the churches: the common council, in their address, declared
themselves not averse to his restoration; and the house itself was induced
to repeal[a] the celebrated engagement in favour of a commonwealth, without
a single person or a house of peers, and to embody under trusty officers
the militia of the city and the counties, as a counterpoise to the
republican interest in the army. The judges of the late king, and the
purchasers of forfeited property, began to tremble. They first tempted the
ambition of the lord-general with the offer of the sovereign authority.[2]
Rejected by him, they appealed to the military; they