f Charles, though
mention of that consequence, and by some even the thought of it, was
most studiously avoided. A full and free new Parliament meant, in the
present mood of the country, a recall of Charles rapidly and
unhesitatingly. The filling up of the present Parliament by the
restoration of the secluded members, and by new elections for other
vacancies, meant the reconstituting of the Long Parliament entire,
just as it had been while negotiations with Charles I. were going on,
and before the Army, in order to stop these negotiations and bring in
the Republic, ejected the Royalist and Presbyterian members. Such a
reconstituted Parliament, if time were given it, would also
inevitably recall Charles II., though it might do so after a
preliminary compact with him on the basis of that Treaty of Newport
which had been going on with his father late in 1648, and which might
be regarded as still embodying the views of the Presbyterians
respecting Royalty and its limits. Of the two methods the Cavaliers
or Old Royalists naturally preferred that which would bring in
Charles most speedily and with the fewest conditions; but, as they
were outnumbered by the Presbyterians or New Royalists, they were
willing to accept _their_ method. To the genuine Rumpers, of
course, either proposal was dreadful. To retain the power themselves,
enlarging their House, if at all, only by new elections permitted by
themselves, and not to part with their power unless to a new
Parliament the qualifications for which should have been carefully
pre-determined by themselves, was the only procedure by which they
could hope to preserve the Commonwealth. Hence, on the one hand,
their willingness to throw overboard all that was not absolutely
essential to a Republican policy; but hence, on the other, their
anxiety to enforce an oath among themselves abjuring Charles and the
Stuarts utterly. It had been to feel Monk's inclinations in this
matter of the abjuration oath, and also to watch his attitude to the
deputations and their requests, that they had despatched their two
commissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He had
baffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his
intention, when he first projected his march to London, had been to
restore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admission
of the secluded members; and this had been recommended to him by
Fairfax. But, now that the Rump was again sitting without the