[Footnote 1:  Phillips, 650-651; Guizot, I. 177-178.]

Meanwhile the new Government had been stoutly at work.  The spirit of the “good old cause” was strong in the two or three scores of members most regularly in attendance, among whom were Vane, Marten, Ludlow, Hasilrig, Scott, Salway, Weaver, Neville, Raleigh, Lister, Walton, Say, Downes, Morley, and John Jones.  Remembering the great days of the Commonwealth between 1649 and 1653, and not inquiring how much of the greatness of those days had been owing to the fact that the politicians at the centre had then a Cromwell marching over the map for them, and winning them the victories that gave them great work to do, they set themselves, with all their industry, courage, and ability, to prove to the world that those great days might be renewed without a Cromwell.  The Council generally held its meetings early in the morning, so that the Council-business might not interfere with their attendance in the House.  Johnstone of Warriston, though a non-Parliamentary member of the Council, at once acquired high influence in it.  He, Vane, and Whitlocke, were most frequently in the chair.

A new great seal; new Commissioners for the same (Bradshaw, Tyrrell, and Fountain); new Judges; state of the public debts; orders for the sale of Hampton Court and Somerset House; suspension of the sale of Hampton Court; votes for pay of the Army and Navy; an Act of Indemnity and Oblivion; a Bill for settling the Union with Scotland; re-declarations of a Free Commonwealth, without Single Person, Kingship, or House of Peers; Irish affairs; a Vote for ending the present Parliament on the 7th of May ensuing:  these mere headings will indicate much of the miscellaneous activity of the Council, or of the House, or of committees of the House, as far as to the end of July.  One may glance more closely at their proceedings and intentions in two departments:  (1) Church and Religion, On the 27th of June, In reply to a petition from “many thousands of the free-born people of this Commonwealth” for the abolition of Tithes, the House voted that “the payment of Tithes shall continue as now they are, unless this Parliament shall find out some other and more equal and comfortable maintenance.”  Evidently, therefore, the Restored Rumpers were not yet prepared to interfere materially with the Church-Establishment as it had been left by Oliver.  The petition, however, which drew from them this declaration, is itself significant.  In the opinion of many over the country absolute Voluntaryism in Religion was part and parcel of “the good old cause,” and ought to be re-proclaimed as such, at once.  Nor, though the Rumpers now refused to admit that, was sympathy with the demand wanting within their own body.  The majority of the Parliament and of its Council were, indeed, orthodox Independents or Semi-Presbyterians, approving of Cromwell’s Church policy, and anxious to support the existing public ministry.  But Vane and some other leading Rumpers