House of Peers,"
was what had been solemnly promised in the first public declaration
of the present powers; and to that all stood pledged. This, of
course, involved a Parliament. But what Parliament or what sort of
Parliament? _The late Rump reinstated at once with full
authority_, Ludlow was bound to say, and did say; but, as that was
out of the question with all the rest, he could suppose himself
outvoted on that, and go on. _Richard's late Parliament_ had
been the murmur of some outside, perhaps not the least sensible in
the main; but the suggestion passed, as meaningless without Richard
himself. _The Long Parliament as it was before it became the Rump,
i.e. with all the survivors of the illegally secluded members of
1642-1649 restored to their seats_, was a third proposal, of more
tremendous significance, that had been heard outside, and indeed had
become a wide popular cry. Inasmuch as this meant the bringing back
of the Parliament precisely as it had been before the King's trial
and the institution of the Commonwealth, with all those Presbyterians
and Royalists in it that it had been necessary to eject in mass in
order to make the King's trial and a Commonwealth possible, little
wonder that the present junto shuddered at the bare suggestion. _A
new Parliament, called by ourselves_, was the conclusion in which
they took rest. But here their debates only began. Should it be a
Parliament of one House or of two Houses? If of two Houses, should
the Second House be a select Senate of fifty or seventy, coordinate
with the larger House, as the Army-chiefs had advised the Rumpers, or
should it be a much larger body? What should be the size of the
larger House, and what the powers and relations of the two? Then,
whether of one or of two Houses, how should the Parliament be
elected? To prevent the mere inrush of a Parliament of the old and
ordinary sort, whose first act would probably be to subvert the
Commonwealth, what qualifications should be established for suffrage
and eligibility? Might it not even be advisable not to permit the
people at first full choice of their representatives, with whatever
prescribed qualifications, but to allow them only choice among
nominees sent down to them by a higher power? Should Harrington's
principle of Rotation be adopted, and, if so, to what extent?
Farther, whatever was to be the structure of the Parliament, were any
fundamentals to be laid down beforehand, as eternal principles of th