elings of the only class which he dared not offend. The
name of king was hateful to the soldiers. Some of them were, indeed,
unwilling to see the administration in the hands of any single person.
The great majority, however, were disposed to support their general, as
elective first magistrate of a commonwealth, against all factions which
might resist his authority; but they would not consent that he should
assume the regal title, or that the dignity, which was the just reward
of his personal merit, should be declared hereditary in his family.[16]
All that was left to him was to give to the new republic a constitution
as like the constitution of the old monarchy as the army would bear.
That his elevation to power might not seem to be his own mere act, he
convoked a council, composed partly of persons on whose support he could
depend, and partly of persons whose opposition he might safely defy.
This assembly, which he called a Parliament, and which the populace
nicknamed, from one of the most conspicuous members, Barebones's
Parliament, after exposing itself during a short time to the public
contempt, surrendered back to the general the powers which it had
received from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan of
government.

[Footnote 16: It is said that it was largely by the warnings
and entreaties of his daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, whom he
tenderly loved, that Cromwell was persuaded not to claim the
crown.]

How Oliver's Parliaments were constituted, however, was practically of
little moment; for he possessed the means of conducting the
administration without their support, and in defiance of their
opposition. His wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, and
to substitute the empire of the laws for that of the sword; but he soon
found that, hated as he was both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he
could be safe only by being absolute. The first House of Commons which
the people elected by his command questioned his authority, and was
dissolved without having passed a single act. His second House of
Commons, though it recognized him as Protector, and would gladly have
made him king, obstinately refused to acknowledge his new lords. He had
no course left but to dissolve the Parliament. "God," he exclaimed,
at parting, "be judge between you and me!"

[Illustration: Cromwell's daughter entreats him to refuse the crown.]

Yet was the energy of the Protector's administra