[Footnote 1:  Council Order Books from Feb. 1857-8 onwards; Thurloe, II. 224.]

As Cromwell had intimated in his Dissolution Speech, his first labour after the dissolution was to attack that vast complication of dangers of which he had already sure knowledge, and which he declared to have been caused, or brought to a head, by the wretched conduct of the Commons through their sixteen days of session, and by the positive treason of some of their number.  He had described the dangers as gathering from two quarters, though they were already interrelated and would run together at last.  There was “the King of Scots’ game,” or the plot of a Royalist commotion in conjunction with a threatened invasion of the Spanish-Stuartist Army; and there was the design of a great insurrection of Old Commonwealth’s men for a subversion of the Protectorate and a return to the pure Single-House Republic.  Of the first danger he had said, “I think myself bound before God to do what I can to prevent it”; the second he had denounced as rebellion, saying, “I hope I shall make it appear to be no better, if God assist me.”  For three or four months he was to be engaged in making good these words; but he had begun already.  On February 6, at a great meeting of the Army-officers in the Banqueting House, he had discoursed to them impressively for two hours, abashing two or three that had been tampered with, and receiving from the rest assurances of their eternal fidelity.  Ludlow says that, for several nights successively, before or after this meeting, Cromwell himself took the inspection of the watch among the soldiers at Whitehall.[1]

[Footnote 1:  2 Ludlow, 598-600; Godwin.  IV. 496-7.]

As always, Cromwell’s tenderness towards the Republicans or Old Commonwealth’s men appeared now in his dealings with the new commotion on that side.  Colonel Packer and Captain Gladman, two disaffected officers in his own regiment of horse, appear to have been merely dismissed from their commands; and one hears besides of but a few arrests, with no farther consequences than examination before the Council and temporary imprisonment.  Harrison was again arrested, the Fifth-Monarchy men having, of course, lent themselves to the agitation, and Harrison having this time, Whitlocke says, been certainly “deep in it.”  Among the others arrested were Mr. John Carew, the Regicide and Councillor under the Commonwealth, John Portman, who had been secretary to Blake in the Fleet, a Hugh Courtney, and John Rogers, a preacher.  There seems to have been no thought of any proceedings against Hasilrig, Scott, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and the other Anti-Cromwellian leaders in the late Parliament.  This, however, is less remarkable than that, with information in Cromwell’s possession that some of the members of the Parliament, nominally Commonwealth’s men, had actually commissions from Charles II. and were enlisting persons under such commissions for any possible insurrection whatever, he had contented himself with announcing the fact in his Dissolution Speech and so merely signifying to the culprits that their lives were in his hands.[1]