instead of being itself the result of sympathy with the main tendencies of the day. Little as is known of Cooper's opinions at this conjuncture, he may fairly be credited with the principles which formed a thread of continuity in his devious career, a dislike of clerical domination, and a belief that the forces of a State are increased rather than diminished by the practice of toleration. Dec. 19. Lawrence Lord President. When the Council met on December 19, it selected Henry Lawrence as its President for the first month. Lawrence had entered Parliament as a recruiter in 1646, and had done useful work on commissions, but had never risen to eminence as a politician. Before the month expired he was empowered by a warrant from the Protector1 to retain his post permanently with the title of Lord President of the Council. He was a distant connection of Oliver's, and had at one time been his landlord at St. Ives. Four other members of the Council were more or less nearly connected by marriage with the Protector, Desborough being his brother-in-law, Mayor the father-in-law of his son Richard, whilst Pickering and Montague were more distantly connected with him.2 Thurloe, Thurloe secretary. who had been secretary to successive Councils since the spring of 1652, retained his office, having under his control the Intelligence Department which the Long Parliament had confided to Scot. Milton remained at the disposition of the Council, but his blindness incapacitated him from active official work, and Philip Meadows, who had for some time acted as Latin translator, was given the full title of Latin Secretary.3 Milton and For the present, the efforts of the Protector and his Council were directed to the repression of the fanatical preachers who had been the backbone of the Advanced party in the late Parliament. These were not long in giving cause for the intervention of the Government. On the 18th either Feake or 1 On Jan. 16, 1654. Council Order Book, Interr. I, 75, p. 53. 3 Order Book of the C. of St., Interr. I, 71, p. 118; Council Warrants, ib. xliv. 6. 1653 POWELL'S DENUNCIATIONS 5 Vavasor Powell openly styled the Protector 'the dissemblingest Dec. 18. The Fifth Monarchy preachers assail perjured villain in the world,' adjuring any of his friends who might be present to report the words to him, and to add that his reign was but short, and that he Cromwell. should be served worse than that great tyrant the last Lord Protector.' 1 On the following day Feake, without mentioning Oliver's name, referred to him as the Little Horn of Daniel's prophecy, who was to make war against the saints, and afterwards to perish at their hands. Powell, who followed him, dwelt with greater emphasis on the same prophecy, averring that Charles I. was the King of the North, in whose place was to stand up 'a raiser of taxes in the glory of the kingdom; but within a few days he shall be destroyed neither in anger nor in battle.' "A small matter," cried the preacher, "would fetch him down with little noise." Then pressing into his service another prophecy relating to 'a vile person to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom; but he shall come in peaceably and obtain the kingdom by flatteries,' Powell drew attention to the prediction that 'arms shall stand on his part.' 2 The great army men, and swordsmen, the preacher explained, should side with him. Yet for all that there was a Fifth Monarchy now being set up by Christ for the destruction of all anti-christian churches and clergy. "Lord," cried Powell in conclusion, “have our army men all apostatised from their principles? What is become of all their declarations, protestations, and professions? Are they choked with lands, parks, and manors? Let us go home and pray, and say, 'Lord, wilt Thou have Oliver Cromwell or Jesus Christ to reign over us?'" 3 'Intercepted letter, Dec. 22, Thurloe, i. 641. The last Protector had been the Duke of Somerset. 2 Daniel xi. 20, 21, 28, 31. 3 Information of Marchamount Needham, Dec. 20, S. P. Dom. xlii. 59. On the day on which these sermons were preached appeared a pamphlet under the title of The Temple's Foundation (E, 724, 13). It contained a Bill, ostensibly intended to have been presented to Parliament, authorising juries of saints to punish sinners. As, apart from the nature Dec. 21-24. Feake and the Council. Dec. 21. Harrison deprived of Feake and Powell were summoned before the Council, kept in custody for four nights, and then liberated with a caution to offend no more. Oliver might have regarded their Powell before proceedings with equanimity, but for the danger that a soldiery steeped in biblical language might take their predictions as a voice from Heaven. Nor was it less necessary to remove from a position of authority over the soldiers the one man amongst all who sympathised with the rabid utterances at Blackfriars, who was capable of setting an army in array. On the 21st, the day on which the two preachers were sent for, Harrison was asked whether he was prepared to act under the new government, and, giving a negative answer, was deprived of his commission. He was a brave and single-minded soldier, but, with his opinions on the relations between the civil and the ecclesiastical power, he was not one in whose hands any government, careful of the welfare of the State, could safely leave a sword. His position in the army was the more dangerous if there was truth in the rumour that his adherents in the nominated Parliament had thought, in the height of the recent crisis, of substituting him for Oliver as commander of the forces.3 his commission. 1654. Jan. A fresh 2 It soon appeared that nothing short of actual compulsion would silence the exuberant rhetoric of the Fifth-Monarchy preachers. Early in the new year strong language was again used in the pulpit, and on January 10 attack by the orders were given to examine witnesses in the case preachers. of the offenders.4 The legal difficulty that no of its contents, the publisher was George Calvert, who also published An Answer to ... a True Narrative in the interests of the Moderate party, may be taken as a mere political skit. it 1 Council Order Book, Interr. I, 75, pp. 7, 11; Several Proceedings, E, 2,233. 2 Thurloe, i. 641. Dec. 30 Add. MSS. 27,962 O. fol. 183. Compare An Answer 3 Salvetti's Newsletter, Harrison though not named is clearly referred to. to ... a True Narrative, E, 725, 20. + Council Order Book, Interr. I, 75, p. 44. 1654 FIFTH-MONARCHY PREACHERS 7 existing law constituted an attack on the authority of the Protector an act of treason was easily surmounted by a The treason temporary ordinance issued in accordance with the provisions of the Instrument.1 Jan. 19. ordinance. Powell escapes to Wales. in London. Jan. 28. Feake and Simpson The Fifth-Monarchy preachers were not the men to take warning. Powell, indeed, had sufficient prudence to escape to Wales, where for some months he continued to preach sedition with impunity.2 Feake and another minister, John Simpson, set the ordinance at defiance They were consequently arrested, and on January 28 committed prisoners to Windsor Castle.3 Whatever an ordinance might say, it was not in imprisoned. Oliver's nature to bring misguided fanatics to the gallows. Harrison was treated with equal consideration. On February 3 he was ordered to retire to his father's house in Staffordshire. Though at first he refused obedience, he submitted in the end, preaching an eloquent sermon to his followers before his departure." "Surely, sir," wrote Roger Williams to a friend, "he is a very gallant, very deserving, heavenly man, but most highflown for the kingdom of the saints and the Fifth-Monarchy now risen, and their sun never to set." 6 4 If there were dangerous elements in the army of England, it was suspected that there were no less dangerous elements in the army in Ireland. The sympathy of Fleetwood Anxiety about the and of most of the Irish Commissioners with the Irish army. Baptists, amongst whom the Fifth-Monarchy move Ordinance on Treason, E, 1,063, No. 41. It was declared treason 'if any person or persons maliciously or advisedly either by writing, printing, openly declaring, preaching, teaching, or otherwise, publish' that the Protector and people in Parliament are not supreme, or that the administration was not in the Protector and Council, or that their authority is tyrannical, usurped, or unlawful. 6 Williams to Winthrop, July 12, Knowles, Life of R. Williams, p. 263. Jan. 2. The Commissioners 1 ment had taken its origin, was undeniable. On January 2, when the news of the abdication of the nominated Parliament reached Dublin, the Commissioners issued a call a prayer circular lamenting the end of an assembly on which meeting. their hopes had been fixed, and calling on all Christian people to join in prayer appropriate to the melancholy occasion. Yet when it became known that a Protectorate had been established, the opposition arising from religious animosity died Reception of away. Fleetwood, by no means a strong the Pro- character, was as Oliver's son-in-law bound by personal ties to the new system, and was restrained by habits of military subordination from offering resistance to the general under whom he served, especially as the most respected of the London Baptists wrote to disclaim all participation in the views of the Fifth Monarchists. When the proclamation of the new authority was offered to the Commissioners for tectorate at Dublin. Ludlow's opposition. Jan. 30. signature, the only refusal came from Ludlow, who stood in no relationship with the Baptist community. As his scruples were not to be overcome, the proclamation was ultimately, on January 30, sent out, proclaimed. in transparent neglect of the usual custom, with the signature of the secretary alone.2 The Protectorate Fifth Ludlow's opposition was based on grounds diametrically opposite to those of the Fifth Monarchists. Those Monarchist who held that the saints ought to rule the world were monwealth as little likely to bow before an elected Parliament as to accept a King or a Protector.3 Yet, trouble and Com men. 1 The Commissioners to the Commanders-in-Chief, Jan. 2, Ludlow, i. 540. 2 Ib. i. 373-375 3 The Fifth-Monarchy position is well put in a letter from the London Baptists to those in Ireland. They say that the substance of the preachings at Blackfriars might be summed up under two heads: 'First that it was the duty of the magistrates to own their power to be received immediately from Jesus Christ. From this the consequence would unavoidably have followed that they were only accountable to Christ for their actions, and not to men; and would not this have been the same with the late |