the Anti-Oliverians. The
Bill, it will be remembered, had passed the second reading on Dec.
23, had then gone into Committee for amendments, and had come back to
the House with these amendments. On the 10th of January, 1654-5, when
the Bill was almost ready to be engrossed, it was moved by the
Oliverians that there should be a conference about it with the
Protector; but the motion was lost by 107 votes to 95. Among various
subsequent divisions was one on the 16th on the question whether the
Bill should become Law even if the Lord Protector should refuse his
assent, and the Anti-Oliverians negatived the putting of the question
by eighty-six votes to fifty-five. The next day, after another
division, it was resolved thus: "That this Bill entitled _An Act
Declaring and Settling the Government of the Commonwealth_, &c.,
be engrossed in order to its presentment to the Lord Protector for
his consideration and assent," and that, if "the Lord Protector and
the Parliament shall not agree thereunto and to every Article
thereof, then the Bill shall be void and of none effect." Cromwell
having thus been shut up to accept all or none, the Bill passed the
third and conclusive reading on Friday, Jan. 19. Then all depended on
Cromwell, who would have twenty days to make up his mind. He had made
up his mind already, and did not mean to wait for the parchment. The
Bill included provisions striking, as he conceived, at the root of
his Protectorate, e.g. one for depriving him and the Council of State
of that power of interim legislation which they had hitherto
exercised with so much effect, and others withholding the negative he
thought his due on future Bills affecting fundamentals. He was,
besides, wholly disgusted with the spirit and conduct of the
Parliament. Accordingly, having bethought himself that, in the
payment of the soldiers and sailors, a month was construed as
twenty-eight days only, he let the Saturday and Sunday after the
third reading of the Bill pass quietly by, and then, on Monday the
22nd, having summoned the House to meet him in the Painted Chamber,
addressed them in what counts as the Fourth of his Speeches, told
them their time was up that day, and dissolved them. Their
Constitutional Bill of Sixty Articles disappeared with them; and they
had not, in all the five months, sent up a single Bill to Cromwell
for his assent.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Godwin, IV. 148-157; Carlyle,
III. 70-95.]