t there were dreams of a rising, which had to
be roughly checked by the execution of the Duke of Hamilton and Lords
Holland and Capell, who had till now been confined in the Tower. But the
popular disaffection was a far more serious matter than these Royalist
intrigues. It was soon plain that the revolution which had struck down
Parliament and monarchy alike was without sanction from the nation at
large. The government of the country had been provided for by the
creation of a Council of State, consisting of forty-one members selected
from what was left of the Commons, and who were entrusted with full
executive power at home and abroad. But if the Rump consented to profit
by the work of the soldiers, it showed no will to signify its approval
of it. A majority of the members of the Council declined the oath
offered to them at their earliest meeting, pledging them to an approval
of the king's death and the establishment of the Commonwealth. In the
nation at large the repudiation of the army's work was universal. Half
the judges retired from the bench. Thousands of refusals met the demand
of an engagement to be faithful to the Republic which was made from all
beneficed clergymen and public functionaries. It was not till May, and
even then in spite of the ill-will of the citizens, that the Council
ventured to proclaim the Commonwealth in London.

[Sidenote: Designs of the Rump.]

It was plain that England had no mind to see her old parliamentary
liberties set aside for a military rule. But in truth the army itself
never dreamed of establishing such a rule. Still less did it dream of
leaving the conduct of affairs in the hands of the small body of members
who still called themselves the House of Commons, a body which numbered
hardly a hundred, and whose average attendance was little more than
fifty. In reducing it by "Pride's Purge" to the mere shadow of a House
the army had never contemplated its continuance as a permanent assembly:
it had, in fact, insisted as a condition of even its temporary
continuance that it should prepare a bill for the summoning of a fresh
Parliament. The plan, put forward by the Council of Officers is still
interesting as the basis of many later efforts towards parliamentary
reform. It advised a dissolution in the spring, the assembling every two
years of a new Parliament consisting of four hundred members, elected by
all householders rateable to the poor, and a redistribution of seats
which would