of his
mighty spirit. Three days later, on the third of September, the day
which had witnessed his victories of Worcester and Dunbar, Cromwell
quietly breathed his last.

[Sidenote: Richard Cromwell, Protector.]

So absolute even in death was his sway over the minds of men, that, to
the wonder of the excited Royalists, even a doubtful nomination on his
death-bed was enough to secure the peaceful succession of his son,
Richard Cromwell. Many in fact who had rejected the authority of his
father submitted peaceably to the new Protector. Their motives were
explained by Baxter, the most eminent among the Presbyterian ministers,
in an address to Richard which announced his adhesion. "I observe," he
says, "that the nation generally rejoice in your peaceable entrance upon
the government. Many are persuaded that you have been strangely kept
from participating in any of our late bloody contentions, that God might
make you the healer of our breaches, and employ you in that Temple work
which David himself might not be honoured with, though it was in his
mind, because he shed blood abundantly and made great wars." The new
Protector was a weak and worthless man; but the bulk of the nation were
content to be ruled by one who was at any rate no soldier, no Puritan,
and no innovator. Richard was known to be lax and worldly in his
conduct, and he was believed to be conservative and even royalist in
heart. The tide of reaction was felt even in his Council. Their first
act was to throw aside one of the greatest of Cromwell's reforms, and to
fall back in the summons which they issued for a new Parliament on the
old system of election. It was felt far more keenly in the tone of the
new House of Commons when it met in January 1659. The republicans under
Vane, backed adroitly by the members who were secretly Royalist, fell
hotly on Cromwell's system. The fiercest attack of all came from Sir
Ashley Cooper, a Dorsetshire gentleman who had changed sides in the
Civil War, had fought for the King and then for the Parliament, had been
a member of Cromwell's Council, and had of late ceased to be a member of
it. His virulent invective on "his Highness of deplorable memory, who
with fraud and force deprived you of your liberty when living and
entailed slavery on you at his death," was followed by an equally
virulent invective against the army. "They have not only subdued their
enemies," said Cooper, "but the masters who raised and maintained them!
T