onclusion, Cromwell conjured him to give his advice without
disguise or qualification, and received this answer, "Make a private
treaty with the son of the late king, and place him on the throne, but on
conditions which shall secure to the nation its rights, and to yourself the
first place beneath the throne." The general coldly observed that a matter
of such importance and difficulty deserved mature consideration. They
separated; and Whitelock soon discovered that he had forfeited his
confidence.[2]

At length Cromwell fixed on a plan to accomplish his purpose by procuring
the dissolution of the parliament, and vesting for a time the sovereign
authority in a council of forty persons, with himself at their head. It was
his wish to effect this quietly by the votes of parliament--his resolution
to effect it by open force, if such votes were refused. Several meetings
were held by the officers and members at the lodgings of the lord-general
in Whitehall. St. John and a few others gave their assent; the rest, under
the guidance

[Footnote 1: Henry, duke of Gloucester, and the princess Elizabeth were in
England at the last king's death. In 1650 the council proposed to send the
one to his brother in Scotland, and the other to her sister in Holland,
allowing to each one thousand pounds per annum, as long as they should
behave inoffensively.--Journals, 1650, July 24, Sept. 11. But Elizabeth
died on Sept. 8 of the same year, and Henry remained under the charge
of Mildmay, governor of Carisbrook Castle, till a short time after this
conference, when Cromwell, as if he looked on the young prince as a rival,
advised his tutor Lovell, to ask permission to convey him to his sister,
the princess of Orange. It was granted, with the sum of five hundred pounds
to defray the expense of the journey.--Leicester's Journal, 103. Heath,
331. Clarendon, iii. 525, 526.]

[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 548-551. Were the minutes of this conversation
committed to paper immediately, or after the Restoration? The credit due to
them depends on this circumstance.]

of Whitelock and Widdrington, declared that the dissolution would be
dangerous, and the establishment of the proposed council unwarrantable.
In the mean time, the house resumed the consideration of the new
representative body, and several qualifications were voted; to all of which
the officers raised objections, but chiefly to the "admission of neuters,"
a project to strengthen the government by t