adjust the new constitution they had prepared in the _Petition and
Advice_ to that unavoidable fact. Not much was necessary. It was
only necessary to re-shape the key-stone, by removing the word "King"
from the first clause of the First Article and retaining the word
"Protector": all the rest would hold good. Accordingly, after some
days of debate, it was finally agreed, May 22, that the former first
clause of the First Article should be cancelled, and this
substituted: "That your Highness will be pleased, by and under the
name and style of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, and the Dominions and Territories thereunto
belonging, to hold and exercise the office of Chief Magistrate of
these Nations, and to govern according to this _Petition and
Advice_ in all things therein contained, and in all other things
according to the Laws of these Nations, and not otherwise." The
remaining clause of the First Article, empowering Cromwell to appoint
his immediate successor, was left untouched, as well as all the
subsequent Articles. To the whole of the _Petition and Advice_,
so arranged, Cromwell solemnly gave his assent in the Painted
Chamber, May 25, addressing the House in a short speech, in which he
expressed his thorough confidence in them in respect to those
explanations or modifications of the document which they had promised
in order to meet the objections he had taken the liberty of making.
He did not doubt there would be "a perfecting of those things."[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates. The speech of Cromwell in
assenting to the _Petition and Advice_, May 25, 1657, had been
accidentally omitted in the earlier editions of Carlyle's
_Cromwell;_ but it was given in the Appendix to the edition of
1657. It may stand as Speech XIV*. in the numbering.]

The "perfecting of those things" occupied a good deal of time. What
was necessary was to cast the resolutions already come to in
supplement to the _Petition and Advice_, or those that might yet
suggest themselves, into a valid legal form; and it was agreed, June
4, that, except in as far as it might be well to pass express Bills
on specific matters, the best way would be to frame and submit to his
Highness a _Humble Additional and Explanatory Petition and
Advice_. The due framing of this, and the preparation of the
necessary Bills, were to be work for three weeks more.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of date, and afterwards.]