the two speakers, with most of the Independent party
and their proselytes, amounting to eight peers and fifty-eight commoners,
availed themselves of the opportunity to withdraw from the insults of the
populace, and to seek an asylum in the army.[1]

In the mean while the council of officers had completed their plan "for the
settlement of the nation," which they submitted first to the consideration
of Charles, and afterwards to that of the parliamentary commissioners. In
many points it was similar to the

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 260, 261. Journals, ix. 377, 393. Holles, 145.
Leicester's Journal in the Sydney Papers, edited by Mr. Blencowe, p. 25.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. July 25.]

celebrated "propositions of peace;" but contained in addition several
provisions respecting the manner of election, and the duration of
parliament and the composition of the magistracy, which may not be
uninteresting to the reader even at the present day. It proposed that a
parliament should meet every year, to sit not less than a certain number of
days, nor more than another certain number, each of which should be fixed
by law; that if at the close of a session any parliamentary business
remained unfinished, a committee should be appointed with power to sit and
bring it to a conclusion; that a new parliament should be summoned every
two years, unless the former parliament had been previously dissolved
with its own consent; that decayed and inconsiderable boroughs should be
disfranchised, and the number of county members increased, such increase
being proportionate to the rates of each county in the common charges
of the kingdom; that every regulation respecting the reform of the
representation and the election of members should emanate from the House of
Commons alone, whose decision on such matters should have the force of law,
independently of the other branches of the legislature; that the names of
the persons to be appointed sheriffs annually, and of those to be appointed
magistrates at any time, should be recommended to the king by the grand
jury at the assizes; and that the grand jury itself should be selected, not
by the partiality of the sheriff, but equally by the several divisions of
the county; that the excise should be taken off all articles of necessity
without delay, and off all others within a limited time; that the land-tax
should be equally apportioned; that a remedy should be applied to the
"unequal, troublesome, and cont