r a
division on the previous question whether they should go into
Committee. On this previous question 136 had voted _No_, with
Sir Charles Wolseley and Mr. Strickland (two of the Council of State)
for their tellers, but 141 had voted _Yea_, with Bradshaw and
Colonel Birch for their tellers. In other words, it had been carried
by a majority of five that it fell within the province of the House
to determine whether the Single-Person element in the Government of
the Commonwealth, already introduced somehow as a matter of fact,
should be continued. On this subject the House debated through the
rest of that sitting, and the whole of the next, and the next, and
the next,--i.e. till Monday, Sept 11. Bradshaw, Hasilrig, and Scott
took the lead for the Republicans, not that they hoped to unseat
Cromwell, but that they wanted to assert the paramount authority of
Parliament, and convert the existing Protectorship into a derivative
from the House then sitting. Lawrence, Wolseley, Strickland, and
others of the Council of State, describable as the ministerial
members, maintained the existing constitution of the Protectorate,
and pointed out the dangers that would arise from plucking up a good
practical basis for mere reasons of theory. Matthew Hale interposed
at last with a middle motion, substantially embodying the Republican
view, but affirming the Protectorship at once, and reserving
qualification. All in all, there was great excitement, much
confusion, and an outbreak from some members of very violent language
about Cromwell.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates: Parl. Hist. III. 1445;
Godwin, IV. 116-125.]

What might have been the issue had a vote come on can only be
guessed. Things were not allowed to go that length. On Tuesday, Sept,
12, the members, going to the House, found the doors locked, soldiers
in and around Westminster Hall, and a summons from the Lord Protector
to meet him again in the Painted Chamber. Having assembled there,
they listened to Cromwell's "Third Speech." It is one of the most
powerful of all his speeches. It began with a long review of his life
in general and the steps by which he had recently been brought to the
Protectorship. It proceeded then to a recitation of what he called
"the witnesses" to his Government, or proofs of its validity--the
Witness _above_, or God's manifest Providence in leading him to
where he was; the Witness _within_, or his own consciousness of
integrity; and the Wi