le found themselves free men once more.
Twelve days afterwards the House went to the extreme of the merciful
process by ordering the release of poor Dr. Matthew Wren, the Laudian
ex-Bishop, who had been committed by the Long Parliament early in
1641 along with Laud and Strafford, and who had been lying in the
Tower, all but forgotten, through the intervening nineteen years. At
the same time discretionary powers were given to the Council of State
to discharge any political prisoners that might be still left.--In
the article of _punishments_ the House was very temperate
indeed. Notorious Rumpers were removed, of course, from military and
civil offices, and there were sharper inquiries after Colonel Cobbet,
Colonel Ashfield, Major Creed, and others too suspiciously at large;
but, with one exception, there seemed to be no thought of the serious
prosecution of any for what had been done either under the Rump
Government or during the Wallingford-House interruption. The
exception was Lambert. Brought before the Council, and unable or
unwilling to find the vast bail of L20,000 which they demanded for
his liberty, he was committed by them to the Tower; and the House, on
the 6th of March, confirmed the act, and ordered his detention for
future trial. While Lambert was thus treated as the chief criminal,
the rewards and honours went still, of course, mainly to Monk. To his
Commandership-in-chief of all the Armies there was added the
Generalship of the whole Fleet, though in this command, to Monk's
disappointment, Montague was conjoined with him (March 2). He was
also made Keeper of Hampton Court; and the L1000 a year in lands
which the Rump had voted him was changed by a special Bill into
L20,000 to be paid at once (March 16), As the Bill was first drafted,
the reward was said to be "for his signal services"; but by a vote on
the third reading the word "signal" was changed into "eminent."
Perhaps Annesley, Sir William Waller, and the other new chiefs at
Whitehall were becoming a little tired of the praises of so peculiar
an Aristides. But he was still a god among the Londoners. From St.
James's, which was now his quarters, he would go into the City every
other day, to attend one of a series of dinners which they had
arranged for him in the halls of the great companies, and at which he
found himself so much at ease in his morose way that he would hardly
ever leave the table "till he was as drunk as a beast." Ludlow, who
tells us so