have given the privilege of representation to every place of
importance. Paid military officers and civil officials were excluded
from election. The plan was apparently accepted by the Commons, and a
bill based on it was again and again discussed. But it was soon
whispered about that the House had no mind to dissolve itself. Whatever
might be the hopes of the soldiers or their leaders, the shrewder
statesmen who sate at Westminster knew that the country was eager to
undo the work that had been done; and that the first effort of a
fairly-chosen Parliament would be to put an end to the Commonwealth and
to religious liberty. Their aim therefore was to gain time; to continue
their rule till what they looked on as a passing phase of national
feeling had disappeared, and till the great results which they looked
for from their policy both at home and abroad had reconciled the nation
to the new system of government. In a witty paraphrase of the story of
Moses, Henry Marten was soon to picture the Commonwealth as a new-born
and delicate babe, and hint that "no one is so proper to bring it up as
the mother who has brought it into the world." Secret as this purpose
was kept, suspicions of it no sooner stole abroad than the popular
discontent found a mouthpiece in John Lilburne, a brave, hot-headed
soldier, and the excitement of the army appeared in a formidable mutiny
in May. But the leaders of the army set all suspicion aside. "You must
cut these people in pieces," Cromwell broke out in the Council of State,
"or they will cut you in pieces"; and a forced march of fifty miles to
Burford enabled him to burst with Fairfax on the mutinous regiments at
midnight, and to stamp out the revolt.

[Sidenote: Cromwell in Ireland.]

But resolute as he was against disorder, Cromwell went honestly with the
army in its demand of a new Parliament; he believed, and in his harangue
to the mutineers he pledged himself to the assertion, that the House
purposed to dissolve itself. In spite of the delays thrown in the way of
the bill for a new Representative body Cromwell entertained no serious
suspicion of the Parliament's design when he was summoned to Ireland by
a series of Royalist successes which left only Dublin in the hands of
the Parliamentary forces. With Scotland threatening war, and a naval
struggle impending with Holland, it was necessary that the work of the
army in Ireland should be done quickly. The temper too of Cromwell and
his soldie