The royalists, who had persuaded themselves that the whole fabric of the protectorial power would fall in pieces on the death of Cromwell, beheld with amazement the general acquiescence in the succession, of Richard; and the foreign princes, who had deemed it prudent to solicit the friendship of the father, now

[Footnote 1:  The Scottish ministers in Edinburgh, instead of joining in these addresses, prayed on the following Sunday, “that the Lord would be merciful to the exiled, and those that were in captivity, and cause them to return with sheaves of joy; that he would deliver all his people from the yoke of Pharaoh, and task-masters of Egypt, and that he would cut off their oppressors, and hasten the time of their deliverance.”—­Thurloe, vii. 416.]

hastened to offer their congratulations to his son.  Yet, fair and tranquil as the prospect appeared, an experienced eye might easily detect the elements of an approaching storm.  Meetings were clandestinely held by the officers;[a] doubts were whispered of the nomination of Richard by his father; and an opinion was encouraged among the military that, as the commonwealth was the work of the army, so the chief office in the commonwealth belonged to the commander of the army.  On this account the protectorship had been bestowed on Cromwell; but his son was one who had never drawn his sword in the cause; and to suffer the supreme power to devolve on him was to disgrace, to disinherit, the men who had suffered so severely, and bled so profusely, in the contest.

These complaints had probably been suggested, they were certainly fomented, by Fleetwood and his friends, the colonels Cooper, Berry, and Sydenham.  Fleetwood was brave in the field, but irresolute in council; eager for the acquisition of power, but continually checked by scruples of conscience; attached by principle to republicanism, but ready to acquiesce in every change, under the pretence of submission to the decrees of Providence.  Cromwell, who knew the man, had raised him to the second command in the army, and fed his ambition with distant and delusive hopes of succeeding to the supreme magistracy.  The protector died, and Fleetwood, instead of acting, hesitated, prayed, and consulted; the propitious moment was suffered to pass by; he assented to the opinion of the council in favour of Richard; and then, repenting of his weakness, sought to indemnify himself for the loss by confining the

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1658.  Sept. 14.]

authority of the protector to the civil administration, and procuring for himself the sole, uncontrolled command of the army.  Under the late government, the meetings of military officers had been discountenanced and forbidden; now they were encouraged to meet and consult; and, in a body of more than two hundred individuals, they presented to Richard a petition, by which they demanded that no officer should be deprived, but by sentence of a court-martial, and that the chief command