of his countrymen either by (1) securing that the
present House should be converted into a real Parliament
by the restoration of the secluded members of 1642-1648
to their seats and the filling up of other vacancies,
or (2) securing that a full and free new Parliament
should be called at once. Both these methods
implied the restoration of Charles, though mention
of that consequence, and by some even the thought of
it, was most studiously avoided. A full and free
new Parliament meant, in the present mood of the country,
a recall of Charles rapidly and unhesitatingly.
The filling up of the present Parliament by the restoration
of the secluded members, and by new elections for other
vacancies, meant the reconstituting of the Long Parliament
entire, just as it had been while negotiations with
Charles I. were going on, and before the Army, in
order to stop these negotiations and bring in the
Republic, ejected the Royalist and Presbyterian members.
Such a reconstituted Parliament, if time were given
it, would also inevitably recall Charles II., though
it might do so after a preliminary compact with him
on the basis of that Treaty of Newport which had been
going on with his father late in 1648, and which might
be regarded as still embodying the views of the Presbyterians
respecting Royalty and its limits. Of the two
methods the Cavaliers or Old Royalists naturally preferred
that which would bring in Charles most speedily and
with the fewest conditions; but, as they were outnumbered
by the Presbyterians or New Royalists, they were willing
to accept their method. To the genuine
Rumpers, of course, either proposal was dreadful.
To retain the power themselves, enlarging their House,
if at all, only by new elections permitted by themselves,
and not to part with their power unless to a new Parliament
the qualifications for which should have been carefully
pre-determined by themselves, was the only procedure
by which they could hope to preserve the Commonwealth.
Hence, on the one hand, their willingness to throw
overboard all that was not absolutely essential to
a Republican policy; but hence, on the other, their
anxiety to enforce an oath among themselves abjuring
Charles and the Stuarts utterly. It had been
to feel Monk’s inclinations in this matter of
the abjuration oath, and also to watch his attitude
to the deputations and their requests, that they had
despatched their two commissioners, Scott and Robinson,
to be in attendance on him. He had baffled them
by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his
intention, when he first projected his march to London,
had been to restore the Rump and to insist at the
same time on the re-admission of the secluded members;
and this had been recommended to him by Fairfax.
But, now that the Rump was again sitting without the
secluded members, and determined to keep them out,
not even to Fairfax had he committed himself by a
definite promise on that point. To the deputations
he would reply only in curt generalities, or indeed,