ut they negatived by
thirty (Marten and Neville tellers) to fifteen (Carew Raleigh and
Robert Goodwyn tellers) a proposal of his partisans to make Sir
Anthony Ashley Cooper one of his colleagues. The colleagues they did
appoint were Hasilrig, Morley, Walton, and Alured; and, in settling
the quorum at three, they rejected a proposal that Monk should always
be one of the quorum.--Through the following week, however, efforts
were still made to come to terms with Monk. On Monday the 13th the
Council of State begged him to return to Whitehall and assist them
with his presence and counsels. His reply was that, so long as the
Abjuration Oath was required of members of the Council, he would not
appear in it, and that meanwhile there were sufficient reasons for
his remaining in the City. Accordingly, he kept his quarters there,
first at the Glass House in Broad Street, and then at Drapers' Hall
in Throgmorton Street, holding _levees_ of the citizens and
city-clergy, and receiving also visits from Hasilrig and other
members of the House. Even Ludlow, though one of the complaints in
Monk's letter was that the House was allowing Ludlow to sit in it
notwithstanding the charge of high treason lodged against him from
Ireland, ventured to go into the den of the lion. He was shy at
first, Ludlow tells us, but became very civil, and, when Ludlow had
discoursed on the necessity of union to keep out Charles Stuart,
"Yea," said he, "we must live and die together for a Commonwealth."
The interest that was now pressing closest round Monk, however, was
that of the Secluded Members. The applications on their behalf by the
Presbyterians of the City and of the counties round were incessant.
Monk even yet had his hesitations. On the one hand, to avert, if
possible, the re-seating of the secluded among them, the Rumpers had
been acting through the week in the spirit of their answer to Monk's
letter. They had been pushing on their Bill of Qualifications, so
that there might be no delay in the issue of writs for filling up
their House to the number of 400, as formerly decided. They had,
moreover, tried to pacify Monk in other ways. They had resolved
(Feb. 14) that the engagement to be taken by members of Parliament
should simply be, "I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of
England and the Government thereof in the way of a Commonwealth and
Free State, without a King, Single Person, or House of Lords"; and
they had resolved that this simple