and on 8 May a petition from many officers against the restoration of monarchy was presented to parliament (Burton, Diary, i. 382, ii. 116). This last petition was, according to Ludlow, the sole cause of Cromwell’s final refusal (Ludlow, Memoirs, 224). From many a staunch Cromwellian outside the army letters and pamphlets against kingship reached the Protector (Nickolls, Letters addressed to Cromwell, pp. 139–43; Chidlby, Reasons against choosing the Protector to he King). It became clear that to accept the crown would alienate the greater part of the army. Such a schism the Protector was extremely anxious to avoid. In his speech on 13 April he told the parliament that good men generally did not swallow the title, and urged them to comply with the weaknesses of men who had been faithful and bled for the cause. ‘I would not,’ he said, ‘that you should lose any servant or friend that might help in this work, that any should be offended by a thing that signifies no more to me than I have told you this does’ (Speech xi.)
Thus at the very beginning of the conferences Cromwell plainly stated the reason which led to his final refusal of the title, but he had good reason for delaying the refusal itself. After so many experiments and failures, the petition and advice held forth a prospect of the long desired settlement. ‘I am hugely taken with the word settlement, with the thing, and with the notion of it,’ he told parliament. In the scheme in question the religious and civil liberties of the nation seemed to him to be fully secured. There was that monarchical element which he had pronounced desirable in 1651. There were the checks on the arbitrary power of the House of Commons which he had considered indispensable in 1653. Above all, ‘that great natural and civil liberty, liberty of conscience,’ which had led to the breach with his first parliament, was fully secured in it. ‘The things provided in the petition,’ said Cromwell, ‘do secure the liberties of the people of God as they never before had them’ (Speech xiii.)
Had he definitely refused the crown when it was first offered him, parliament might have thrown up the whole scheme in disgust. Even if they had persisted in enacting the rest of the petition and advice, they would hardly have adopted the Protector’s suggestions for its amendment, for those suggestions were adopted in the hope of obtaining his acceptance of the crown. After the refusal of the crown they simply substituted the title of lord protector for that of king, and altered the first clause accordingly. Cromwell accepted the petition thus altered on 25 May, and was a second time installed Protector on 26 June 1657. But his powers under the new constitution wore far more extensive than they had been under the ‘instrument of government.’ He acquired the right to appoint his own successor. With the approval of parliament he was empowered to nominate the members of the newly erected second chamber. The grant of a fixed sum for the maintenance of the army and navy made him to a great extent independent of parliamentary subsidies. The increase of his authority was marked by a corresponding increase in his outward state. At his first inauguration Cromwell had been clad in plain black velvet, and invested with the civil sword as the symbol of his authority. At his second he was robed in purple and ermine, and presented with a golden sceptre. His elder children had married into the families of private gentlemen. Now he matched his third daughter, Mary, with Lord Falconbridge (11 Nov. 1657), and his youngest, Frances, with the heir of the Earl of Warwick (19 Nov. 1657).
As 1657 was the culminating point of Cromwell’s greatness at home, so it marked the fullest development of his foreign policy. On 23 March 1657 he concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with France, by which six thousand English foot were to take part in the war in Flanders, and Dunkirk and Mardyke to be England’s share of the joint conquests (Guizot, ii. 562; Chéruel, Histoire de France sous le Ministère de Mazarin, iii. 52). On 20 April Blake destroyed the Spanish fleet at Santa Cruz, and in September Mardyke passed into Cromwell’s hands. Cromwell sought to complete the league with France against the Spanish branch of the Hapsburgs by a league with Sweden against the Austrian branch. It was necessary to support Sweden in order to maintain the freedom of the Baltic and protect English trade thither. It was necessary also to stand up for the protestant cause against the league of the pope, Spain, and Austria to tread it under foot. He spoke of Charles Gustavus as a poor prince who had ventured his all for the protestant cause (Carlyle, Speech xvii.) All depended, however, on the question whether parliament would co-operate with the Protector to maintain the recent settlement. When parliament met in January 1658, Cromwell’s party in the House of Commons was weakened by the promotion of many of his supporters to the upper house and the readmission of the members excluded during the first session. The Protector’s opening speech was full of confidence that the desired settlement was at last secure. He hailed the
