[Footnote 1 Council Order Book of date.—­Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, having shown Anti-Oliverian tendencies in the late Parliament, did not reappear in the Council after the Dissolution, and had virtually ceased to be a member.  Colonel Mackworth had died Dec. 26, 1654.  The three other members not present at the meeting of Jan. 23, 1664-5 were Fleetwood, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and Richard Mayor.  Fleetwood was in Ireland; Pickering’s absence was accidental, and he was in his place very regularly afterwards; Mayor did not attend steadily.]

In the Dissolution Speech Cromwell, rebuking the Parliament for their inattention to what he considered their real duty, had compared them to a tree under the shadow of which there had been a too thriving growth of other vegetation.  Interpreting the parable, he had explained to them that there was at that moment a new and very complex conspiracy against the Commonwealth, that the Levellers at home had been in correspondence with the Cavaliers abroad, that their plans were laid and their manifestos ready, that commissioners from Charles Stuart had arrived and stores of arms and money had been collected, and also (worst of all) that there had been tamperings with the Army by Commonwealth men of higher note than the mere Levellers.  He did not believe, he said, that any then in Parliament were in the Cavalier interest in the connexion, but he was not sure that they were all perfectly clear of the connexion on all its sides.  At all events, he knew that their policy of starving the Army had given the enemy their best opportunity.  Fortunately, he had already some of the chief home-conspirators in custody, and the Cavalier part of the plot might explode when it liked.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Speech IV (Carlyle, III 75-81.)]

The chief of those in custody when Cromwell spoke was the Republican Major-General Overton.  He had been under suspicion before, as we have seen, but had cleared himself sufficiently to Cromwell, and had been sent back to Scotland as second in command to Monk (Sept. 1654).  Since then, however, he had relapsed into the Anti-Oliverian mood, and had become, it was believed, the head of the numerous Anti-Oliverians or Republicans in Monk’s Army, The proposal was to seize Monk, make Overton the commander-in-chief, and march into England, But, information having been received in time, there had been the necessary arrests of the guilty officers (Dec. 1654).  Most of them had been kept in Edinburgh to be dealt with by Monk; but the chiefs had been sent at once to London, and among them Overton, whose arrest had taken place at Aberdeen.  He was committed to the Tower Jan. 16, 1654-5.  The clue having thus been furnished, further investigation had disclosed more.  In concert with the Anti-Oliverian movement in the Army of Scotland, and depending on that movement for help, there had been plottings in England, in which Harrison, Colonel Okey, Colonel Alured, Colonel Sexby, Adjutant-General