r, elected Feb.
1648-9), he had retired from it before its dissolution. His
nomination now to a seat in the Council was but a compliment, for he
withdrew into Yorkshire. An exceptional appointment was that of the
Scottish Sir Archibald Johnstone of Warriston. The Restored Rump was
avowedly an English Parliament only, treating the union with Scotland
as a business yet to be consummated. The election of a single
Scotchman among the non-Parliamentary members of the Council was like
a pledge that Scottish interests should not meanwhile be neglected.
His election was by the recommendation of his friend Vane, who
probably knew that Johnstone was by this time a _bona fide_
Republican. More questionable appointments, from the Republican point
of view, were those of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper and Sir Horatio
Townshend. The second, a cousin of Fairfax, and one of the wealthiest
men in Norfolk, was in secret communication with Charles II., and had
express permission from him to accept the present appointment.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals, May 13-16, 1659; Markham's Fairfax,
375; Baillie's Letters, III. 430; Guizot, I. 153.]

There was one fatal absurdity in the position of the Restored Rump
Government. It came together in the name of "the good old cause," or
a pure and absolute Republic; and yet it stood there itself in
glaring contradiction to what is usually regarded, and to what itself
put forth, as the very root-principle of a pure Republic--to wit, the
Sovereignty of the People. Richard's House of Commons had been as
freely elected as any House of Commons since that of the Long
Parliament, and, as far as England and Wales were concerned, by the
same constituencies; it represented no past mood of the community,
but precisely their mood in January 1658-9; and the attendances in
the House, when it did meet, were unusually numerous. Well, in a
series of debates and votes, in which there was no concussion, this
Parliament had declared, in the main, for a continuation of the
Protectorate and the Protectoral Constitution as settled by Oliver's
Second Parliament. Hardly had this been done when, by a combination
in London between the disappointed Republicans and the Army
malcontents, the Parliament was abruptly dissolved. What then
stepped in to take its place? A small body, effectively about eighty
strong at the utmost, having no pretence of representing the
community at that time, or of being anything else than the casual
sur