ast pressing the bill for a new Representative
through the House. "It is contrary to common honesty," Cromwell angrily
broke out; and, quitting Whitehall, he summoned a company of musketeers
to follow him as far as the door of the Commons. He sate down quietly in
his place, "clad in plain grey clothes and grey worsted stockings," and
listened to Vane's passionate arguments. "I am come to do what grieves
me to the heart," he said to his neighbour, St. John; but he still
remained quiet, till Vane pressed the House to waive its usual forms and
pass the bill at once. "The time has come," he said to Harrison. "Think
well," replied Harrison, "it is a dangerous work!" and Cromwell listened
for another quarter of an hour. At the question "that this bill do
pass," he at length rose, and his tone grew higher as he repeated his
former charges of injustice, self-interest, and delay. "Your hour is
come," he ended, "the Lord hath done with you!" A crowd of members
started to their feet in angry protest. "Come, come," replied Cromwell,
"we have had enough of this"; and striding into the midst of the
chamber, he clapt his hat on his head, and exclaimed, "I will put an end
to your prating!" In the din that followed his voice was heard in broken
sentences--"It is not fit that you should sit here any longer! You
should give place to better men! You are no Parliament." Thirty
musketeers entered at a sign from their General, and the fifty members
present crowded to the door. "Drunkard!" Cromwell broke out as Wentworth
passed him; and Marten was taunted with a yet coarser name. Vane,
fearless to the last, told him his act was "against all right and all
honour." "Ah, Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane," Cromwell retorted in
bitter indignation at the trick he had been played, "you might have
prevented all this, but you are a juggler, and have no common honesty!
The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!" The Speaker refused to quit
his seat, till Harrison offered to "lend him a hand to come down."
Cromwell lifted the mace from the table. "What shall we do with this
bauble?" he said. "Take it away!" The door of the House was locked at
last, and the dispersion of the Commons was followed a few hours after
by that of their executive committee, the Council of State. Cromwell
himself summoned them to withdraw. "We have heard," replied the
President, John Bradshaw, "what you have done this morning at the House,
and in some hours all England will hear it. Bu