[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1653.  April 22.]

They next proceeded to establish[a] a council of state.  Some proposed that it should consist of ten members, some of seventy, after the model of the Jewish Sanhedrim; and others of thirteen, in imitation of Christ and his twelve apostles.  The last project was adopted as equally scriptural, and more convenient.  With Cromwell, in the place of lord president, were joined four civilians and eight officers of high rank; so that the army still retained its ascendancy, and the council of state became in fact a military council.

From this moment for some months it would have embarrassed any man to determine where the supreme power resided.  Some of the judges were superseded by others:  new commissioners of the treasury and admiralty were appointed; even the monthly assessment of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds was continued for an additional half-year; and yet these and similar acts, all of them belonging to the highest authority in the state, appeared to emanate from different sources; these from the council of war, those from the council of state, and several from the lord-general himself, sometimes with the advice of one or other, sometimes without the advice of either of these councils.[1]

At the same time the public mind was agitated by the circulation of reports the most unfounded, and the advocacy of projects the most contradictory.  This day it was rumoured that Cromwell had offered to recall

[Footnote 1:  Whitelock, 556, 557, 559.  Leicester’s Journal, 142.  Merc.  Polit.  No. 157.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1653.  April 30.]

the royal family, on condition that Charles should marry one of his daughters; the next, that he intended to ascend the throne himself, and, for that purpose, had already prepared the insignia of royalty.  Here, signatures were solicited to a petition for the re-establishment of the ancient constitution; there, for a government by successive parliaments.  Some addresses declared the conviction of the subscribers that the late dissolution was necessary; others prayed that the members might be allowed to return to the house, for the sole purpose of legally dissolving themselves by their own authority.  In the mean while, the lord-general continued to wear the mask of humility and godliness; he prayed and preached with more than his wonted fervour; and his piety was rewarded, according to the report of his confidants, with frequent communications from the Holy Spirit.[1] In the month of May he spent eight days in close consultation with his military divan; and the result was a determination to call a new parliament, but a parliament modelled on principles unknown to the history of this or of any other nation.  It was to be a parliament of saints, of men who had not offered themselves as candidates, or been chosen by the people, but whose chief qualification consisted in holiness of life, and whose call to the office of legislators came from the choice of the council.  With this view the ministers took the sense of the “congregational churches” in the several counties; the returns contained the names of the persons, “faithful, fearing God, and hating covetousness,” who were deemed qualified for this high and important trust; and out of these the council in the presence of the lord-general selected one hundred and thirty-nine