ublican sectaries, of a sudden proposal in the present
Parliament to restore Charles. On the other hand, the Old Royalists
throughout the country had no wish to hear of such a proposal.
_They_ dreaded nothing so much, short of loss of all chance of
the King's return, as seeing him return tied by such terms as the
present Presbyterian House would impose. It was a relief to all
parties, therefore, and a satisfactory mode of self-delusion to some,
that the present House should abstain from the constitutional
question altogether, and should confine itself to the one duty of
providing another Parliament to which that question, with all its
difficulties, might be handed over.--On the 22nd of February, the
second day of the restored House, it was resolved that a new
Parliament should be summoned for the 25th of April, and a Committee
was appointed to consider qualifications. The Parliament was to be a
"full and free" one, by the old electoral system of English and Welsh
constituencies only, without any representation of Scotland or
Ireland. But what was meant by "full and free"? On this question
there was some light on the 13th of March, when the House passed a
resolution annulling the obligation of members of Parliament to take
the famous engagement to be faithful to "the Commonwealth as
established, without King or House of Lords," and directing all
orders enjoining that engagement to be expunged from the Journals.
This was certainly a stroke in favour of Royalty, in so far as it
left Royalty and Peerage open questions for the constituencies and
the representatives they might choose; but, taken in connexion with
the order, eight days before, for the revival of the Solemn League
and Covenant--in which document "to preserve and defend the King's
Majesty's person and authority" is one of the leading phrases--it was
received generally as a positive anticipation of the judgment on
these questions. There was yet farther light, however, between March
13 and March 16, when the House, on report from the Committee,
settled the qualifications of members and electors. All Papists and
all who had aided or abetted the Irish Rebellion were to be incapable
of being members, and also all who, or whose fathers, had advised or
voluntarily assisted in any war against the Parliament since Jan. 1,
1641-2, unless there had been subsequent manifestation of their good
affections. This implied the exclusion of all the very conspicuous
Royalists of th