SECTION II.

BETWEEN THE PARLIAMENTS, OR THE TIME OF ARBITRARINESS: JAN. 22,
1654-55--SEPT. 17, 1656.

AVOWED "ARBITRARINESS" OF THIS STAGE OF THE PROTECTORATE, AND REASONS
FOR IT.--FIRST MEETING OF CROMWELL AND HIS COUNCIL AFTER THE
DISSOLUTION: MAJOR-GENERAL OVERTON IN CUSTODY: OTHER ARRESTS:
SUPPRESSION OF A WIDE REPUBLICAN CONSPIRACY AND OF ROYALIST RISINGS
IN YORKSHIRE AND THE WEST: REVENUE ORDINANCE AND MR. CONY'S
OPPOSITION AT LAW: DEFERENCE OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS: BLAKE IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN: MASSACRE OF THE PIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS: DETAILS OF
THE STORY AND OF CROMWELL'S PROCEEDINGS IN CONSEQUENCE: PENN IN THE
SPANISH WEST INDIES: HIS REPULSE FROM HISPANIOLA AND LANDING IN
JAMAICA: DECLARATION OF WAR WITH SPAIN AND ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE:
SCHEME OF THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND BY MAJOR-GENERALS: LIST OF THEM
AND SUMMARY OF THEIR POLICE-SYSTEM: DECIMATION TAX ON THE ROYALISTS,
AND OTHER MEASURES _IN TERROREM_: CONSOLIDATION OF THE LONDON
NEWSPAPER PRESS: PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMISSION OF EJECTORS AND OF THE
COMMISSION OF TRIERS: VIEW OF CROMWELL'S ESTABLISHED CHURCH OF
ENGLAND, WITH ENUMERATION OF ITS VARIOUS COMPONENTS: EXTENT OF
TOLERATION OUTSIDE THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH: THE PROTECTOR'S TREATMENT
OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS, THE EPISCOPALIANS, THE ANTI-TRINITARIANS, THE
QUAKERS, AND THE JEWS: STATE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS
UNDER THE PROTECTORATE: CROMWELL'S PATRONAGE OF LEARNING: LIST OF
ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS ALIVE IN 1656, AND ACCOUNT OF THEIR DIVERSE
RELATIONS TO CROMWELL: POETICAL PANEGYRICS ON HIM AND HIS
PROTECTORATE.--NEW ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND: LORD
BROGHILL'S PRESIDENCY THERE FOR CROMWELL: GENERAL STATE OF THE
COUNTRY: CONTINUED STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE RESOLUTIONERS AND THE
PROTESTERS FOR KIRK-SUPREMACY: INDEPENDENCY AND QUAKERISM IN
SCOTLAND: MORE EXTREME ANOMALIES THERE: STORY OF "JOCK OF BROAD
SCOTLAND": BRISK INTERCOURSE BETWEEN SCOTLAND AND LONDON: MISSION OF
MR. JAMES SHARP.--IRELAND FROM 1654 TO 1656.--GLIMPSE OF THE
COLONIES.

This long stretch of twenty months was to be another period of the
government of the Commonwealth by the Lord Protector and the Council
of State on their own responsibility and without a Parliament. In the
circumstances in which the late Parliament had left them, without
supplies and without a single concluded and authoritative enactment,
they could only fall back on the original Instrument of the
Protectorate, amending its defects by their own