to show that, during the seven months and twenty-eight days of
his Protectorship, he shrank from the perpetration of cruelty and
crime. Accordingly, when those who had at first supported his authority
eventually conspired against him, he refrained from using his power to
crush them. At this his friends were wrath. "It is time to look about
you," said Lord Howard, speaking with the bluntness of a friend. "Empire
and command are not now the question. Your person, your life are in
peril. You are the son of Cromwell; show yourself worthy to be his son.
This business requires a bold stroke, and must be supported by a good
head. Do not suffer yourself to be daunted. I will rid you of your
enemies: do you stand by me, and only back my zeal for your honour with
your name; my head shall answer for the consequences."

Colonel Ingoldsby seconded the advice Lord Howard gave, but Richard
Cromwell hearkened to neither. "I have never done anybody any harm,
and never will," said he, "will not have a drop of blood spilt for the
preservation of my greatness, which is a burden to me." At this Lord
Howard was indignant. "Do you think," he asked, "this moderation of
yours will repair the wrong your family has committed by its elevation?
Everybody knows that by violence your father procured the death of the
late king, and kept his sons in banishment: mercy in the present state
of affairs is unreasonable. Lay aside this pussillanimity; every moment
is precious; your enemies spend the time in acting which we waste
in consulting." "Talk no more of it," answered the Protector. "I am
thankful for your friendship, but violent counsels suit not with me."

The climax was at hand; his fall was but a question of time. "A
wonderfull and suddaine change in ye face of ye publiq," writes Evelyn,
on the 25th of April, 1659. "Ye new Protector Richard slighted; several
pretenders and parties strove for the Government; all anarchy and
confusion. Lord have mercy on us!"

Before the month of May had expired, the House of Commons commissioned
two of its members to bid Richard Cromwell leave the palace of
Whitehall, and obtain his signature to a deed wherein he acknowledged
complete submission to Parliament. His brief inglorious reign was
therefore at an end. "As with other men," he wrote to the House of
Commons, "I expect protection from the present Government: I do hold
myself obliged to demean myself with all the peaceableness under it,
and to procure, to th