Cromwell did not hesitate to wreak his revenge on Essex and Manchester, though the blow would probably recoil upon himself.[b]He proposed in the Commons what was afterwards called the “self-denying ordinance,” that the members of both houses should be excluded from all offices, whether civil or military.  He would not, he said, reflect on what was passed, but suggest a remedy for the future.  The nation was weary of the war; and he spoke the language both of friends and foes, when he said that the blame of its continuance rested with the two houses, who could not be expected to bring it to a speedy termination as long as so many of their members derived from military commands wealth and authority, and consideration.  His real object was open to every eye; still the motion met with the concurrence of his own party,

[Footnote 1:  Baillie, ii. 76, 77.  Journals, Dec. 2, 4; Jan. 18.  Lords’ Journals, 79, 80.  Whitelock, 116, 117.  Hollis, 18.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1644.  Dec. 2.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1644.  Dec. 9.]

and of all whose patience had been exhausted by the quarrels among the commanders; and, when an exemption was suggested in favour of the lord-general, it was lost on a division by seven voices, in a house of one hundred and ninety-three members.[a] However, the strength of the opposition encouraged the peers to speak with more than their usual freedom.[b] They contended, that the ordinance was unnecessary, since the committee was employed in framing a new model for the army; that it was unjust, since it would operate to the exclusion of the whole peerage from office, while the Commons remained equally eligible to sit in parliament, or to fill civil or military employments.  It was in vain that the lower house remonstrated.[c] The Lords replied that they had thrown out the bill, but would consent to another of similar import, provided it did not extend to commands in the army.

But by this time the committee of both kingdoms had completed their plan of military reform, which, in its immediate operation, tended to produce the same effect as the rejected ordinance.[d] It obtained the sanction of the Scottish commissioners, who consented, though with reluctance, to sacrifice their friends in the upper house, for the benefit of a measure which promised to put an end to the feuds and delays of the former system, and to remove from the army Cromwell, their most dangerous enemy.  If it deprived them of the talents of Essex and Manchester, which they seem never to have prized, it gave them in exchange a commander-in-chief, whose merit they had learned to appreciate during his service in conjunction[e]

[Transcriber’s Note:  Footnote 1 not found in the text]

[Footnote 1:  Journals, Dec. 9, 17; Jan. 7, 10, 13.  Lords’ Journals, 129, 131, 134, 135.  Rushworth, vi. 3-7.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1644.  Dec. 17.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1644.  Dec. 21.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1645.  Jan. 15.] [Sidenote d:  A.D. 1645.  Jan. 9.] [Sidenote e:  A.D. 1645.  Jan. 21.]