authority over the army and his veto over legislation, they minimised the amount of religious toleration guaranteed by the constitution, and delayed, in order to prolong their own existence, the vote of supplies for the army and navy. ‘It seemed,’ complained Cromwell, ‘as if they had rather designed to lay grounds for a quarrel than to give the people settlement.’ All the opponents of the government were encouraged by these transactions to believe that there would be no settlement, and cavaliers and levellers were plotting to put the nation again in blood and confusion. Cromwell seized the first opportunity the constitution gave him to put an end to their sittings (22 Jan. 1655; ib. iv.)
The plots of which the Protector had spoken were real and dangerous, but the vigilance of his police nipped them in the bud. The leaders of the military malcontents were arrested, and all danger of a rising of levellers and Fifth-monarchy men came to an end. Deterred by the discovery of their designs, the chiefs of the royalists refund to head the general movement which was to have taken place in February 1655, and the isolated rising which actually took place in March was easily suppressed. A few of the leaders were executed, and some scores of their followers were sent to the West Indies to work in the sugar plantations. So easy was the government’s triumph that it has been seriously argued that the rising was concerted by Cromwell himself in order to justify the arbitrary measures which he had before decided to adopt (Quarterly Review, April 1886). This is merely an ingenious paradox, but the fact remains that the measures of repression seem to have been stronger than the actual danger of the situation required. The country was parcelled out into twelve divisions, each under the government of a major-general (October 1655). The major-general had under his command the local militia, and additional troops maintained by a tax of ten per cent, on the incomes of the royalists. His instructions charged him with the care of public security, with the maintenance of an elaborate political police, and with the enforcement of all the laws relating to public morals (Parliamentary History, xx. 461). The suggestion of this scheme appears to have come from the military party in Cromwell’s council, but he adopted it as his own, and proceeded to carry it out with his usual energy.
His first object was to provide for the peace of the nation by strengthening the army and police. 'If there were need of greater forces to carry on this work, it was a most righteous thing to put the charge upon that party which was the cause of it’ (Speech v.)
He sought both to deter the royalists from future appeals to arms and to punish them for continuing to plot against the government after the passing of an amnesty (Declaration of his Highness . . . shewing the reasons of his late Proceedings for securing the Peace of the Commonwealth, 1655; Parliamentary History, xx. 434). He hoped by the agency of the major-generals to carry out the social reformation which the ordinary local authorities could not be trusted to effect. In his defence of the major-generals to his second parliament Cromwell declared that the institution had been more effectual to the discountenancing of vice and the settling of religion than anything done for the last fifty years (Speech v.)
Another reason helped to cause the further development of military government. A legal resistance more dangerous than royalist plots threatened to sap the foundations of the protectorate. The validity of the ordinances of the Protector and his council was called in question. Whitelocke and Widdrington resigned the great seal from scruples about executing the ordinance regulating the court of chancery ({sc|Whitelocke}}, Memorials, ff. 621–627). Judges Newdigate and Thorpe refused to act on the commission established, according to the ordinance on treasons, for the trial of the Yorkshire insurrectionists. A merchant named Cony refused to pay duties not imposed by parliament, and Chief-justice Rolle resigned from unwillingness or incapacity to maintain the legality of the customs ordinance.
Cromwell sent Cony’s lawyers to the Tower, replaced the doubting judges by men of fewer scruples, and enforced the payment of taxes by the agency of the major-generals. Necessity justified this in his own eyes and he believed that it would justify him in the eyes of the nation. ‘The people,’ he had said, when he dissolved his last parliament, ‘will prefer their safety to their passions, and their real security to forms, when necessity calls for supplies’ (Carlyle, Speech iv.) If this argument did not convince, he relied on force. ‘ ’Tis against the voice of the nation, there will be nine in ten against you,’ Calamy is represented as once saying to Cromwell. ‘Very well,’ said Cromwell, ‘but what if I should disarm the nine, and put a sword in the tenth man’s hand; would not that do the business?’ (Banks, Critical Review of the Life of Oliver Cromwell, 1747, p. 149).
Apologists for Cromwell's rule boasted the freedom of conscience enjoyed under it (Moore, Protection Proclaimed, 1656). In that respect also political necessities led him to diminish the amount of liberty which had
