ned, and especially was there controversy
as to whether the powers of Parliament should be construed to extend
to the revision of the constitution. In 1657 the Protector was asked
to assume the title of king. This he refused to do, but he did accept
a new constitution, the Humble Petition and Advice, in which a step
was taken toward a return to the governmental system swept away in
1649.[31] This step comprised, principally, the re-establishment of a
parliament of two chambers--a House of Commons and, for lack of
agreement upon a better designation, "the Other House." Republicanism,
however, failed to strike root. Shrewder men, including Cromwell, had
recognized all the while that the English people were really royalist
at heart, and it is not too much to say that from the outset the
restoration of monarchy was inevitable. Even before the death of
Cromwell, in 1658, the trend was distinctly in that direction, and
after the hand of the great Protector had been removed from the helm
such a consummation was a question but of time and means. May 25,
1660, Charles II., having engaged to grant a general amnesty and to
accept such measures of settlement respecting religion as Parliament
should determine upon, landed at Dover and was received with all but
universal acclamation.[32]

[Footnote 31: Gardiner, Documents of the Puritan
Revolution, 447-459.]

[Footnote 32: The best of the general treatises
covering the period 1603-1660 are F. C. Montague,
The History of England from the Accession of James
I. to the Restoration (London, 1907), and G. M.
Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts (London,
1904). The monumental works within the field are
those of S. R. Gardiner, i.e., History of England,
1603-1642, 10 vols. (new ed., London, 1893-1895);
History of the Great Civil War, 4 vols. (London,
1894); and History of the Commonwealth and
Protectorate, 4 vols. (London, 1894-1901). Mr.
Gardiner's work is being continued by C. H. Firth,
who has published The Last Years of the
Protectorate, 1656-1658, 2 vols. (London, 1909).
The development of institutions is described in
Taswell-Langmead, English Const