e House, there should be a
Select Senate or Other House. To these demands for a continuation of
the Protectorate in a limited form the Republicans could not yield,
though Ludlow, to remove obstructions, was willing to concede a
temporary Senate for definite purposes. The differences had not been
adjusted when the Wallingford-House men intimated that they were
prepared for the main step and would join with the Republicans in
restoring the Rump. This was finally arranged on the 6th of May, when
there was drawn up for the purpose "A Declaration of the Officers of
the Army," signed by the Army Secretary "by the direction of the Lord
Fleetwood and the Council of Officers," and when two deputations, one
of Army-chiefs with the Declaration in their hands, and the other of
independent Republicans, waited on old Speaker Lenthall at his house
in Covent Garden. It was for Lenthall, as the Speaker of the Rump at
its dissolution, to convoke the surviving members.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ludlow, 644-649; Parl. Hist. III. 1546-7; Thomason
Pamphlets, and Chronological Catalogue of the same.]

Ludlow becomes even humorous in describing the difficulties they had
with old Lenthall. To the deputation of Republicans, which arrived
first, "he began to make many trifling excuses, pleading his age,
sickness, inability to sit long," the fact being, as Ludlow says,
that he had been one of Oliver's and Richard's courtiers, and was now
thinking of his Oliverian peerage, which would be lost if the
Protectorate lapsed into a Republic. When the military deputation
arrived, and Lambert opened the subject fully, Lenthall was still
very uneasy. "He was not fully satisfied that the death of the late
King had not put an end to the Parliament." That objection having
been scouted, and the request pressed upon him that he would at once
issue invitations to such of the old members as were in town to meet
him next morning and form a House, "he replied that he could by no
means do as we desired, having appointed a business of far greater
importance to himself, which he would not omit on any account,
because it concerned the salvation of his own soul. We then pressed
him to inform us what it might be: to which he answered that he was
preparing himself to participate of the Lord's supper, which he was
resolved to take on the next Lord's day. Upon this it was replied
that mercy is more acceptable to God than sacrifice, and that he
could not better prepare himself for t