emed, his health was by
no means as strong as his will; he had been struck down by intermittent
fever in the midst of his triumphs both in Scotland and in Ireland, and
during the past year he had suffered from repeated attacks of it. "I
have some infirmities upon me," he owned twice over in his speech at the
reopening of the Parliament in January 1658, after an adjournment of six
months; and his feverish irritability was quickened by the public
danger. No supplies had been voted, and the pay of the army was heavily
in arrear, while its temper grew more and more sullen at the appearance
of the new Constitution and the reawakening of the Royalist intrigues.
Cromwell had believed that his military successes would secure
compliance with his demands; but the temper of the Commons was even more
irritable than his own. Under the terms of the new Constitution the
members excluded in the preceding year took their places again in the
House; and it was soon clear that the Parliament reflected the general
mood of the nation. The tone of the Commons became captious and
quarrelsome. They still delayed the grant of supplies. Meanwhile a hasty
act of the Protector in giving to his nominees in "the other House," as
the new second chamber he had devised was called, the title of "Lords,"
kindled a strife between the two Houses which was busily fanned by
Haselrig and other opponents of the Government. It was contended that
the "other House" had under the new Constitution simply judicial and not
legislative powers. Such a contention struck at once at Cromwell's work
of restoring the old political forms of English life: and the
reappearance of Parliamentary strife threw him at last, says an observer
at his court, "into a rage and passion like unto madness." What gave
weight to it was the growing strength of the Royalist party, and its
hopes of a coming rising. Such a rising had in fact been carefully
prepared; and Charles with a large body of Spanish troops drew to the
coast of Flanders to take advantage of it. His hopes were above all
encouraged by the strife in the Commons, and their manifest dislike of
the system of the Protectorate. It was this that drove Cromwell to
action. Summoning his coach, by a sudden impulse, the Protector drove on
the fourth of February with a few guards to Westminster; and, setting
aside the remonstrances of Fleetwood, summoned the two Houses to his
presence. "I do dissolve this Parliament," he ended a speech of a