a
reconstitution of the Protectorate on a definite basis; but through
the second session this Parliament, though nominally the same, had
been split into two Houses, the House of Lords wholly Oliverian, but
the House of Commons, by the loss of a number of its former members
and the readmission of the excluded, turned into an Anti-Oliverian
conclave. Fourteen folio pages of the _Commons Journals_ are
the only remaining formal records of the short and unfortunate
Session. Oliver's Lords can have had little more to do than meet and
look at each other.

* * * * *

There was to be no Parliament more while Cromwell lived. For seven
months onwards from Feb. 4, 1657-8, he was to govern, one may say,
more alone than ever, more as a sovereign, and with all his energies
in performance of the sovereignty more tremendously on the strain.

There was still, of course, the Council, now essentially a Privy
Council, meeting twice or thrice a week, or sometimes on special
summons, and with this novelty in the public style and title of the
councillors, that those of them who had been in the Upper House of
the late Parliament retained the name of "Lords." Lord President
Lawrence, Lord Richard Cromwell, Lord Fleetwood, Lord Montague, Lord
Commissioner Fiennes, Lord Desborough, Lord Viscount Lisle, the Earl
of Mulgrave, Lord Rous, Lord Skippon, Lord Pickering (_alias_
"The Lord Chamberlain"), Lord Strickland, Lord Wolseley, Lord
Sydenham, Lord Jones (_alias_ "Mr. Comptroller"), and Mr.
Secretary Thurloe: such would have been the minute of a complete
_sederunt_ of the Council when, it resumed duty after the
dissolution of the Parliament. There never was such a complete
_sederunt:_ ten out of the sixteen was the average attendance,
rising sometimes to twelve. Occasionally Cromwell came to one of
their meetings; but generally they transacted business among
themselves to his order, and communicated with him privately. A few
of the Councillors were more closely in his confidence than the rest;
Whitlocke, though not of the Council, was often consulted about
special affairs; and the man-of-all-work, closeted with his Highness
daily, was Mr. Secretary Thurloe. His Highness had, moreover, a
private secretary, Mr. William Malyn, who had been with him already
for several years.[1]

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books from Feb. 1857-8 onwards; Thurloe,
II. 224.]

As Cromwell had intimated in his Dissolution Speech, his