[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1654.  Sept. 24.]

but by many, their confinement was attributed as much to policy as to indisposition.  The Cavaliers diverted themselves by prophesying that, as his first fall had been from a coach, the next would be from a cart:  to the public, the explosion of the pistol revealed the secret terrors which haunted his mind, that sense of insecurity, those fears of assassination, which are the usual meed of inordinate and successful ambition.[1]

The force so lately put on the parliament, and the occasion of that force, had opened the eyes of the most devoted among his adherents.  His protestations of disinterestedness, his solemn appeals to Heaven in testimony of his wish to lead the life of a private gentleman, were contrasted with his aspiring and arbitrary conduct; and the house, though deprived of one-fourth of its number, still contained a majority jealous of his designs and anxious to limit his authority.  The accident which had placed his life in jeopardy naturally led to the consideration of the probable consequences of his death; and, to sound the disposition of the members, the question of the succession was repeatedly, though not formally, introduced.  The remarks which it provoked afforded little encouragement to his hopes; yet, when the previous arrangements had been made, and all the dependants of the government had been mustered, Lambert, having in a long and studied speech detailed the evils of elective, the benefits of hereditary, succession, moved[a] that the office of protector should be limited to the family of Oliver Cromwell, according to the known law of inheritance.  To the surprise and the mortification

[Footnote 1:  Heath, 363.  Thurloe, ii. 652, 653, 672.  Ludlow, ii. 63.  Vaughan, i. 69.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1654.  Oct. 13.]

of the party, the motion was negatived by a division of two hundred against eighty voices; and it was resolved that, on the death of the protector, his successor should be chosen by the parliament if it were sitting, and by the council in the absence of parliament.[1]

This experiment had sufficiently proved the feelings of the majority.  Aware, however, of their relative weakness, they were careful to give Cromwell no tangible cause of offence.  If they appointed committees to revise the ordinances which he had published, they affected to consider them as merely provisional regulations, supplying the place of laws till the meeting of parliament.  If they examined in detail the forty-two articles of “the instrument,” rejecting some, and amending others, they still withheld their unhallowed hands from those subjects which he had pronounced sacred,—­the four immovable pillars on which the new constitution was built.  Cromwell, on his part, betrayed no symptom of impatience; but waited quietly for the moment when he had resolved