and they had been longing for action, and looking about for leaders.  Harrison was their chief hope, and they had applied to him, but also to other Republicans who were not specially Fifth-Monarchy Men, such as Rich, Lawson, and Okey.  What encouragement they had or thought they had from such men one does not know; but they had fixed Thursday, April 9, the very day of the appointment of the great Committee of Ninety-nine to deal with Cromwell about the Kingship, for an experimental rendezvous and standard-raising on Mile-End-Green.  This being known to Thurloe, a horse-troop or two finished the affair by the capture of about twenty of them at Shoreditch, ready to ride to Mile-End-Green, and also by the capture at Mile-End-Green itself of their intended standard, some arms, and a quantity of Fifth-Monarchy books and manifestos.  Five or six of the captured, among whom was Thomas Venner, a wine-cooper, the real soul of the conspiracy, were imprisoned in the Tower, and the rest elsewhere; but, in accordance with Cromwell’s lenient custom in such cases, there was no trial, or other public notice of the affair, beyond a report about it by Thurloe to the House (April 11).  Harrison, however, was again arrested, with Rich, Lawson, and Major Danvers; and amongst those taken was a Mr. Arthur Squib, who had been in the Barebones Parliament, and one of Harrison’s chief followers there.  Squib’s connexion with Venner in the present wretched conspiracy seems to have been much closer than Harrison’s.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Godwin, IV. 372-375; Carlyle, III. 228-229; Thomason Catalogue of Pamphlets; Commons Journals, April 11, 1657; Thurloe, I. 289.]

Cromwell had used the Venner outbreak to point a moral in one or two of his speeches on the Kingship Question.  The standard taken at Mile-End-Green bore a Red Lion couchant, with the motto Who shall rouse him up?; and among the tracts or manifestos taken was one called A Standard set up, whereunto the true Seed and Saints of the Most High may be gathered together for the lamb, against the Beast and the False Prophet.  It was a fierce diatribe against Cromwell, with a scheme for the government of the Commonwealth on Fifth-Monarchy principles after his overthrow.  The supreme authority was to be the Lord Jesus Christ; but there was to be an annually elected Sanhedrim or Supreme Council to represent Him, and to administer Biblical Law, and no other, with inferior elected judges for towns and counties.  The Bible being the sole Law, a formal Legislature would be unnecessary; and all other magistracy besides the Sanhedrim and the Judgeships was to be abolished, and also, of course, all State ministry of Religion.  Now, to Cromwell, who had read the Tract, all this furnished excellent illustration of the kind he wanted.  Always frankly admitting that it might be said he had “griped at the government of the nations without a legal assent,” he had never ceased to declare that this had been a sheer necessity for the nations themselves.