ng
Cromwell's Decimation Tax of 1655, and virtually the whole machinery
of the Major-Generalships. That there would be serious opposition in
the House had been foreseen since Dec. 25, when there had been two
divisions on the question of leave to bring in the Bill, and leave
had been obtained only by eighty-eight votes to sixty-three. Among
the opponents were Whitlocke and the other lawyers, all those indeed
who wanted to terminate the time of "arbitrariness," and objected to
a tax now on old political delinquents as contrary to the
Parliamentary Act of Oblivion of Feb. 1651-2. On the other hand, the
Bill was strongly supported by Lambert. Fiennes, Lisle, Pickering,
Sydenham, other members of Council, and the Major-Generals
themselves. It was, in fact, a Government Bill, Nevertheless, after a
protracted debate of six days, the second reading of the Bill was
negatived Jan. 29 by 121 to 78, and the Bill absolutely rejected by
124 to 88. Cromwell himself had helped to bring about this result.
Much as he liked his "invention," he had perceived, in the course of
the debate, that it must be given up; and he had given hints to that
effect. The House, in short, had understood that they were left to
their own free will. And so the Major-Generalships disappeared, the
police of the country reverted to the ordinary magistracy, and
Cromwell was to trust to Parliament for necessary supplies in more
regular ways.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Godwin, IV. 327-331.]

What drew the Parliament and the Protector more closely together
about this time was the explosion of a new plot against the
Protector's life. At the centre of the plot was that "wretched
creature, an apostate from religion and all honesty," of whom
Cromwell had spoken in his opening speech as going between Charles
II. and the King of Spain, and negotiating for a Spanish invasion of
England. In other words, he was Edward Sexby, once a stout trooper
and agitator in the Parliamentarian army (Vol. III. p. 534),
afterwards Captain and even Colonel in the same, but since then one
of the fiercest Anabaptist malcontents. He had been in the Wildman
plot of Feb. 1654-5, but had then escaped abroad; and since then his
occupation had been as described by Cromwell,--now in Flanders, now
in Madrid, shuttling alliance between Spain and the Stuarts. But,
though a Spanish invasion of England to restore the Stuarts was his
great game, an assassination of Cromwell anyhow, whe