In the mean while the speaker, preceded by the mace, and followed by Sydenham and his friends, walked through the street to Whitehall.  In the way, and after his arrival, he was joined by several members, by some through curiosity, by others through fear.  At Whitehall, a form of resignation of the supreme power was hastily engrossed by the clerk, subscribed by the speaker and his followers, and tendered by them to Cromwell.  The lord-general put on an air of surprise; he was not prepared for such an offer, he would not load himself with so heavy a burthen.  But his reluctance yielded to the remonstrances and entreaties of Lambert and the officers, and the instrument was laid in a chamber of the palace for the convenience of such members as had not yet the opportunity of subscribing their names.

[Footnote 1:  Exact Relation, 25, 26.  True Narrative, 3.  Thurloe, i. 730.  I adopt the number given by Mansel, as he could have no motive to diminish it.]

On the third day the signatures amounted to eighty, an absolute majority of the whole house; on the fourth, a new constitution was published, and Cromwell obtained the great object of his ambition,—­the office and authority, though without the title, of king.[1]

On that day, about one in the afternoon, the lord-general repaired in his carriage from the palace to Westminster Hall,[a] through two lines of military, composed of five regiments of foot and three of horse.  The procession formed at the door.  Before him walked the aldermen, the judges, two commissioners of the great seal, and the lord mayor; behind him the two councils of state and of the army.  They mounted to the court of Chancery, where a chair of state with a cushion had been placed on a rich carpet.  Cromwell was dressed in a suit and cloak of black velvet, with long boots, and a broad gold band round his hat.  He took his place before the chair, between the two commissioners; the judges stood in a half-circle behind it, and the civic officers ranged themselves on the right, the military on the left, side of the court.

[Footnote 1:  Exact Relation, 26.  True Narrative, 4.  Ludlow, ii. 33.  Clarendon, iii. 484.  Thurloe, i. 754.  The author of this new constitution is not known.  Ludlow tells us that it was first communicated by Lambert to a council of field officers.  When some objections were made, he replied, that the general was willing to consider any amendments which might be proposed, but would not depart from the project itself.  Some, therefore, suggested that, after the death of the present lord-general, the civil and military government should be kept separate, and that no protector should be succeeded by any of his relatives.  This gave so much offence, that, at a second meeting, Lambert, having informed them that the lord-general would take care of the civil administration, dismissed them to their respective commands.—­Ludlow, ii. 37.  It is to this, perhaps, that the Dutch ambassador alludes, when he says that Cromwell desisted from his project of being declared king on account of the displeasure of the officers.—­Thurloe, i. 644.]