d taken the precaution of putting
on paper to be read to them, and then sent them, under the conduct of
Captain Miller and a sufficient guard, to the doors of the Parliament
House. The incident had been expected; there were soldiers all round
the House already; and the procession walked through cheering crowds
of spectators. Monk remained at Whitehall himself, to hold a General
Council of his officers later in the day.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Phillips, 687-688; Skinner,
233-242; Ludlow, 832-836; Letters of M. de Bordeaux in Guizot, II.
347-365.]

The Rump, which had been still busy on Saturday with the Bill of
Qualifications or "Disabling Bill," but whose sitting on Monday is
marked only by a hiatus in the Journals, had not formed the House on
Tuesday morning when the procession of secluded members, swelled to
about eighty by stragglers on the way, entered and took their seats.
A few of the Rumpers, seeing what had occurred, ruefully left the
House, to return no more; but most remained and amalgamated
themselves easily with the more numerous new comers. The
reconstituted House then plunged at once into business
thus:-"PRAYERS: _Resolved_, &c., That the Resolution of this
House of the 18th of December, 1648, 'that liberty be given to the
members of this House to declare their dissent to the vote of the 5th
of December 1648 that the King's Answer to the Propositions of both
Houses was a ground for this House to proceed upon for settlement of
the Peace of the Kingdom,' be vacated, and made null and void, and
obliterated." In other words, here was the Long Parliament, like a
Rip Van Winkle, resuming in Feb. 1659-60 the work left off in Dec.
1648, and acknowledging not an inch of gap between the two dates.
There were seven other similar Resolutions, cancelling votes and
orders standing in the way; and these, with orders for the discharge
of the citizens recently imprisoned by the Rump, and resolutions for
annulling the late new Army Commission of the Rump, and for
appointing Monk to be "Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief, under
the Parliament, of all the land-forces of England, Scotland, and
Ireland," and continuing Vice-Admiral Lawson, in his naval command,
were the sum and substance of the business of the first sitting.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of date.]

Before night Monk and his officers had drafted a Letter to all the
regiments and garrisons of England, Scotland, and Ireland, explai