For about a fortnight after Lambert’s coup d’etat, the Council of State of the Rump, having become in a manner a party to that action, still continued to sit in Whitehall, on an understanding with the General Council of the Officers meeting in Wallingford House.  There are preserved minutes of their sitting’s to the 25th of October, from which it appears that the Laird of Warriston was in the chair once or twice, but Whitlocke principally.  Bradshaw, who was then a dying man, had appeared at one meeting, but only to protest that, “being now going to his God,” he must leave his testimony against a compromise founded on perjury to the Republic.  But on the 26th of October, after much consultation, the Council of State gave place to a new Supreme Executive, chosen by the Wallingford—­House officers, and called The Committee of Safety. It consisted of twenty-three persons, as follows:—­

  Whitlocke (made also_ Lord Keeper of the Great Seal_, Nov. 1).

  Colonel Robert Bennett
  Colonel James Berry
  Henry Brandreth
  Colonel John Clerk
  Desborough
  Fleetwood
  Sir James Harrington
  Colonel Hewson
  Cornelius Holland
  Alderman Ireton
  Sir Archibald Johnstone of Wariston
  Lambert
  Henry Lawrence
  Colonel Robert Lilburne
  Ludlow
  Major Salway
  William Steele (Chancellor of Ireland)
  Walter Strickland
  Colonel William Sydenham
  Robert Thompson
  Alderman Tichbourne
  Sir Henry Vane.

The combination of persons is curious.  Some were mere inserted ciphers, and others would not act.  Whitlocke, who was earnestly pressed by the officers to give to the body the weight and reputation of his presence, had very considerable hesitations, but did consent, chiefly on the ground, as he tells us, that he might be able to counteract the extravagant communistic tendencies of Vane and Salway, and so prevent mischief.  It is perhaps stranger to find Vane and Salway themselves on the list.  Of late, however, Vane had been detaching himself from the group of more intense Parliamentarians and seeing prospects for his ideas from conjunction, rather with the Army-men.  So with Salway, Ludlow had been nominated on the new body at a venture.  Thinking he might be wanted to help the Rump in their struggle with the Army, he had returned from Ireland, leaving Colonel John Jones as his locum tenens there; and he had not heard the astonishing news of Lambert’s action till his landing on the Welsh coast.  He had then wavered for a while between going back to Ireland and coming on to London, but had decided for the latter.  Before his arrival in town he had heard of his nomination to the Committee of Safety and resolved not to accept it.  He was more willing than usual, however, to make the best of circumstances; he consented even to shake hands with Lambert when he first met him; and, though not concealing his opinion that Lambert’s act had