n: he now represented it as
a rotten plank, upon which no man could trust himself without sinking.
Even the humble petition and advice, which he extolled in its turn,
appeared so lame and imperfect, that it was found requisite, this very
session, to mend it by a supplement; and after all, it may be regarded
as a crude and undigested model of government. It was, however, accepted
for the voluntary deed of the whole people in the three united nations;
and Cromwell, as if his power had just commenced from this popular
consent, was anew inaugurated in Westminster Hall, after the most solemn
and most pompous manner.

The parliament having adjourned itself, the protector deprived Lambert
of all his commissions; but still allowed him a considerable pension
of two thousand pounds a year, as a bribe for his future peaceable
deportment. Lambert's authority in the army, to the surprise of every
body, was found immediately to expire with the loss of his commission.
Packet and some other officers, whom Cromwell suspected, were also
displaced.

Richard, eldest son of the protector, was brought to court, introduced
into public business, and thenceforth regarded by many as his heir in
the protectorship; though Cromwell sometimes employed the gross artifice
of flattering others with hopes of the succession. Richard was a person
possessed of the most peaceable, inoffensive, unambitious character; and
had hitherto lived contentedly in the country, on a small estate which
his wife had brought him. All the activity which he discovered, and
which never was great, was, however, exerted to beneficent purposes:
at the time of the king's trial, he had fallen on his knees before his
father, and had conjured him, by every tie of duty and humanity, to
spare the life of that monarch. Cromwell had two daughters unmarried;
one of them he now gave in marriage to the grandson and heir of his
great friend the earl of Warwick, with whom he had, in every fortune,
preserved an uninterrupted intimacy and good correspondence. The other
he married to the viscount Fauconberg of a family formerly devoted
to the royal party. He was ambitious of forming connections with the
nobility; and it was one chief motive for his desiring the title of
king, that he might replace every thing in its natural order, and
restore to the ancient families the trust and honor of which he now
found himself obliged, for his own safety, to deprive them.

{1658.} The parliament was ag