on." In January
1655, with words of angry reproach he declared the Parliament
dissolved.

[Sidenote: The Major-Generals.]

The dissolution of the Parliament of 1654 was a turning-point in the
relations of England and the army. As yet neither the people nor the
soldiers had fairly recognized the actual state of affairs. From the
revolution of 1648 the sword had been supreme, but its supremacy had
been disguised by the continuance of the Rump. When the Rump was
expelled, the military rule which followed still seemed only
provisional. The bulk of Englishmen and the bulk of the army itself
looked on its attitude as simply imposed on it by necessity, and
believed that with the assembly of a Parliament all would return to a
legal course. But the Parliament had come and gone; and the army still
refused to lay down the sword. On the contrary, it seemed at last to
resolve to grasp frankly the power which it had so long shrunk from
openly wielding. All show of constitutional rule was now at an end. The
Protectorate, deprived by its own act of all chance of legal sanction,
became a simple tyranny. Cromwell professed indeed to be restrained by
the "Instrument": but the one great restraint on his power which the
Instrument provided, the inability to levy taxes save by consent of
Parliament, was set aside on the plea of necessity. "The People," said
the Protector in words which Strafford might have uttered, "will prefer
their real security to forms." That a danger of Royalist revolt existed
was undeniable, but the danger was at once doubled by the general
discontent. From this moment, Whitelock tells us, "many sober and noble
patriots," in despair of public liberty, "did begin to incline to the
king's restoration." In the mass of the population the reaction was far
more rapid. "Charles Stuart," writes a Cheshire correspondent to the
Secretary of State, "hath five hundred friends in these adjacent
counties for every one friend to you among them." But before the
overpowering strength of the army even this general discontent was
powerless. Yorkshire, where the Royalist insurrection was expected to be
most formidable, never ventured to rise at all. There were risings in
Devon, Dorset, and the Welsh Marches, but they were quickly put down,
and their leaders brought to the scaffold. Easily however as the revolt
was suppressed, the terror of the Government was seen in the energetic
measures to which Cromwell resorted in the hope of securi