ingenuity as
exigencies occurred, with a suggestion now and then snatched, for the
sake of quasi-Parliamentary countenance, from the wreck of the late
Constitutional Bill. Hence a character of "arbitrariness" in
Cromwell's government throughout this period greater perhaps than in
any other of his whole Protectorate. For that, however, he was
prepared. At the first meeting of the Council after the Dissolution
of Parliament (Tuesday, Jan. 23, 1654-5) there were present, I find,
His Highness himself, and thirteen out of the eighteen Councillors,
viz.: Lord President Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Viscount Lisle,
Lambert, Desborough, Fiennes, Montague, Sydenham, Strickland, Sir
Charles Wolseley, Skippon, Jones, and Rous; and it was then "ordered
by his Highness and the Council that Friday next be set apart for
their seeking of God, and that Mr. Lockyer, Mr. Caryl, Mr. Denn, and
Mr. Sterry, be desired then to give their assistance." In entering on
the new period of their Government, the Protector and the Council
thought a day of special prayer very fitting.[1]

[Footnote 1 Council Order Book of date.--Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper,
having shown Anti-Oliverian tendencies in the late Parliament, did
not reappear in the Council after the Dissolution, and had
virtually ceased to be a member. Colonel Mackworth had died Dec.
26, 1654. The three other members not present at the meeting of
Jan. 23, 1664-5 were Fleetwood, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and Richard
Mayor. Fleetwood was in Ireland; Pickering's absence was
accidental, and he was in his place very regularly afterwards;
Mayor did not attend steadily.]

In the Dissolution Speech Cromwell, rebuking the Parliament for their
inattention to what he considered their real duty, had compared them
to a tree under the shadow of which there had been a too thriving
growth of other vegetation. Interpreting the parable, he had
explained to them that there was at that moment a new and very
complex conspiracy against the Commonwealth, that the Levellers at
home had been in correspondence with the Cavaliers abroad, that their
plans were laid and their manifestos ready, that commissioners from
Charles Stuart had arrived and stores of arms and money had been
collected, and also (worst of all) that there had been tamperings
with the Army by Commonwealth men of higher note than the mere
Levellers. He did not believe, he said, that any then in Parliament
were in the Cavalier interest in the connexion