anxiety to substitute some sort of legal rule for the power of the
sword. The Convention had named during its session a fresh Council of
State, and this body at once drew up, under the name of the Instrument
of Government, a remarkable Constitution which was adopted by the
Council of Officers. They were now driven by necessity to the step from
which they had shrunk, that of convening a Parliament on the reformed
basis of representation, though such a basis had no legal sanction. The
House was to consist of four hundred members from England, thirty from
Scotland, and thirty from Ireland. The seats hitherto assigned to small
and rotten boroughs were transferred to larger constituencies, and for
the most part to counties. All special rights of voting in the election
of members were abolished, and replaced by a general right of suffrage,
based on the possession of real or personal property to the value of two
hundred pounds. Catholics and "Malignants," as those who had fought for
the king were called, were excluded for the while from the franchise.
Constitutionally all further organization of the form of government
should have been left to this Assembly; but the dread of disorder during
the interval of its election, as well as a longing for "settlement,"
drove the Council to complete their work by pressing the office of
"Protector" upon Cromwell. "They told me," he pleaded afterwards, "that
except I would undertake the government they thought things would hardly
come to a composure or settlement, but blood and confusion would break
in as before." If we follow however his own statement, it was when they
urged that the acceptance of such a Protectorate actually limited his
power as Lord-General, and "bound his hands to act nothing without the
consent of a Council until the Parliament," that the post was accepted.
The powers of the new Protector indeed were strictly limited. Though the
members of the Council were originally named by him, each member was
irremovable save by consent of the rest: their advice was necessary in
all foreign affairs, their consent in matters of peace and war, their
approval in nominations to the great offices of State, or the disposal
of the military or civil power. With this body too lay the choice of all
future Protectors. To the administrative check of the Council was added
the political check of the Parliament. Three years at the most were to
elapse between the assembling of one Parliament and anoth