CHAPTER XV.

THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE PROTECTORATE. (1649-59.)

So far as the mere organisation of governmental machinery is concerned, the Revolution may be held to have put itself into working form with remarkable speed and smoothness-a result in part attributable to the fact that in the country at large there was at the outset no strong opposition or disaffection to meet, although the Government was certainly not popular.

The first trial of its efficiency was, as might have been expected, & military and not a civil one. In Ireland Ormonde had in June, 1649, made a treaty with the Confederate Catholics at Kilkenny, and deemed himself strong enough to invite Charles II to make Ireland a starting-point for an invasion of England. In Scotland Charles had been proclaimed King on February 5, the day following that on which the news of his father's execution had arrived ; and the Scottish Parliament instructed its Commissioners in London to repair to the Hague in order to negotiate with the new King. With correct insight, the English Government (Parliament and Council), apprehending that the .more immediate danger threatened from Ireland, made provision for a standing army of 30,000 men for England, and of 12,000 for the invasion of Ireland. On August 15, 1649, Cromwell landed at Dublin. On September 11 he stormed Drogheda, and on October 11 captured Wexford. Six months later, after the surrender of Clonmel, Cromwell sailed for England, leaving Ireton behind him as Lord Deputy (May 26, 1650).

After Worcester, and the subsequent completion by Monck of the subjugation of Scotland, all fear of opposition from the Royalist party in the three kingdoms was practically at an end, and the Government of the Commonwealth was able to address itself to larger questions of constitutional administration at home and of national policy abroad.

The military danger and political needs which had held together the army and the Parliament, and which had brushed aside the demand for a new legislature, had been dissolved by the victory of Worcester. As a result the constitutional question at once emerged ; and Cromwell was left free to urge the demands of the army and the nation alike for the calling of a new Parliament. His reappearance in Parliament after Worcester was followed by the introduction of a Bill for the calling of a new assembly. On November 14,1651, it was voted that the dissolution should take place on November 3, 1654. In this compromise Cromwell had himself acquiesced ; none the less, he was deeply dissatisfied at the Parliament's attempt thus unduly to prolong its life, and thereby the existing unconstitutional Government. In order to propitiate popular feeling the Parliament entered upon the work of law reform and evinced its regard for the interests of trade by passing the Navigation Act. By prohibiting the importation of the produce of Asia, Africa and America in any but English or Colonial bottoms, and of that of European countries save in English bottoms or those of the countries of its origin, the Act struck a powerful blow at the carrying trade of the Dutch. Finally, in May, 1652, when the nation was on the verge of the Dutch War, but opposition was still unallayed, it was proposed to broaden the existing Parliament by filling up the seats vacated by " Pride's Purge." For the moment, however, the outbreak of the First Dutch War again postponed the question of the constitution. Its opening (June 30, 1652) was followed by Blake's victory off the Kentish Knock (September 28), his defeat off Portland (February 18, 1658), Lawson and Monck's victory off the Gabard (June 2-3, 1653), and Monck's off the Texel (July 31). Peace was concluded on April 5, 1654. Its terms were far more moderate than those at first proposed by the Parliament. The Dutch were to exclude the Stewarts from their country ; to salute the British flag in British seas ; and to submit to arbitration the amount of compensation payable to British merchants for their maritime losses in the East and elsewhere.

The writs ran in Cromwell's name as Captain and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces.

The Parliament (commonly called, with a play on the name of one of the City members, the "Barebones Parliament") met at Whitehall, as summoned, on July 4; and Cromwell forthwith and in good faith made over to it his dictatorship. By an instrument which he caused to be read to the Parliament on the opening day the supreme authority was devolved upon it until November 3, 1654 ; and three months before its dissolution it was to choose another assembly to succeed it. Assuming the powers thus, by however doubtful authority, conferred upon it, the Assembly now calling itself a Parliament nominated a Council of State of 31 as an executive. In this Council the civilian element predominated ; but Cromwell had a seat in both Council and Parliament. Further, by the reconstruction of the Council of State on November 1, he obtained a working majority in it in favour of peace with the Dutch and of a more conservative policy in Church and State. But in the Nominated Parliament itself there was no such working majority. To immature and reckless attempts at legislation for the abolition of tithes and for law reform this Parliament added impracticable conclusions on finance, and finally stultified itself by its hopeless divisions on Church questions. The fatuity of its proceedings precipitated the reaction and gave form to the demand for a written Constitution, such as had been sketched in the "Heads of the Proposals'" (August 1, 1647) and in the "Agreement of the People" (January 15, 1649) ; save that the question of the hour was no longer, as formerly, the control of the executive, but the imposition of checks on the despotism of a single House.

To this Constitution Cromwell took the oath on December 16, 1653, in the Court of Chancery, and was installed as Protector. Until September, 1654, the day on which a Parliament was to meet, Cromwell and the Council were empowered to issue ordinances and to raise money for the army, navy, and civil government. In accordance with this article eighty-two administrative ordinances were thus issued in the interval before the calling of Cromwell's first Parliament.

Once installed as Protector, Oliver, by his more moderate attitude towards the Dutch, facilitated the conclusion of peace (April, 1654). This success was followed by commercial treaties with Christina of Sweden (April 11, 1654) and Frederick III of Denmark (September 15, 1654), and by the completion of another, long delayed, with Portugal (July 10, 1654).

Concurrently with these commercial treaties Cromwell was carrying on the most tortuous and involved double negotiation for an alliance with Spain on the one hand and France on the other-a negotiation which illustrates more forcibly than any other event in his career the extraordinarily involved, confused, and hesitating method of working of Cromwell's mind during the preparatory stages of a great decision, and at the same time the singular combination in his nature of strong religious feeling with intensely practical sense. His long hesitancy ended at last in the expedition against Hispaniola-a scheme which he definitely embraced in July, 1654, but which was delayed until the following winter by unaccountable mismanagement in the fleet and land forces, and in the arrangements as to the command. It resulted, in May, 1655, in the partial success of the capture of Jamaica.

On land the treaty of March, 1657, led to prompt action on Cromwell's part. The English forces landed at Boulogne on May 13, 1657 ; Mardyk surrendered on September 25 following. The battle of Dunkirk was fought on June 13, 1658, and was followed, twelve days later, by the surrender of the town, which was immediately delivered over to Lockhart in accordance with the terms of the French treaty.

At home, the elections for the first representative Parliament of the three kingdoms (Scotland and Ireland had each been allotted 30 members) took place in the summer of 1654. Under the restrictions imposed by the Instrument, and in consequence also of the extraordinary precautions taken by the Government, the Irish and Scotch returns were entirely favourable to the Administration, the majority of these members being officers of the army. In England, however, the precautions had not been so successful. Some pronounced Republicans had been returned, and in the west even some Royalists. But the main result was decisive. The extreme party, the fanatics and revolutionaries of the Nominated Parliament, were swept away.

The result of the dissolution was that Cromwell and the army found themselves in the position from which, during all his remaining years, the Protector strove in vain to escape-that of an unfettered executive, or in other words a military despotism, with only its self-imposed Instrument as its guide.

The events of the succeeding months were of a nature to test the validity and legality of such a governmental system. The Royalist plots which resulted in the isolated risings in Yorkshire and elsewhere (March 8, 1655), and in Penruddock's rising in Wilts (March 11-14), raised the question of the trial of the Royalist rebels and revealed an unwillingness on the part of the Judges to act on a treason trial commission based on no greater authority than the Instrument. From another quarter the same fundamental objection was raised in the trial in May, 1655, of a London merchant, Cony, who had refused to pay customs. Such legal opposition raised the vital questions of the Protector's right to levy taxes and the validity of ordinances issued under the terms of the Instrument.

(October 11), with the subsequent adjuncts of county commissions for the preservation of the peace (September 21). The Government did not even attempt to defend the legality of these measures.

Government disgusted many of the otherwise neutral or favourable members of the House. For in the division immediately preceding the one detailed above the numbers had amounted to 195 ; so that it would appear that over 50 members withdrew voluntarily or at least abstained from voting.

The tame and submissive act of the House in thus condoning an outrage upon itself implied at the outset a tacit acceptance of the Instrument. But the Parliament was prepared to go much further than this. Even before the elections had been held, proposals were advanced for making the Protector's title hereditary ; and from the moment of its meeting the air was thick with rumours of some impending attempt in this direction and in that of changing the title itself. The earlier proposals, which had been made in December, 1653, by Lambert and the officers, and again in December, 1654, by Augustine Garland and Anthony Ashley Cooper, and again in the summer of 1655 by a civilian petition in the City of London, had all taken the form of urging Cromwell to take the title of King. But the narrower form of the project which was now brought forward differed from these. The present proposal was to make Oliver's Protectorate hereditary-the very idea against which Cromwell had so strongly protested in his speech at the dissolution of Parliament on January 22, 1655.

This first form of the proposal was made on October 28, 1656, by Major-General William Jephson ; and it agitated both the army and the Parliament all through November. But early in December the matter was dropped ; and, when in February, 1657, it was again brought forward by Sir Christopher Packe, it had assumed a wider form. The lawyers, under the lead of Whitelock, had seized upon the proposal with avidity, and in adopting it had extended its range so as to include the old idea of the revival of the kingly title. Whitelock says, " I declined the first delivery of the Petition and Advice, not liking several things in it ; but Sir Christopher Packe, to gain honour, pre sented it first to the House, and then the Lord Broghil, Glyn, I, and others, put it forward." Ludlow says that the Commonwealth's men fell so furiously on Packe for his presumption that they bore him down from the Speaker's chair to the bar of the House. Writing to Monck on the proposal, Secretary Thurloe says, " I do assure you, it arises from the Parliament only ; his Highness knew nothing of the particulars until they were brought into the House, and no man knows but whether if they be passed his Highness will reject them. Tis certain he will, if the security of the good people and cause be not provided for therein to the full."

The new draft Constitution thus framed was presented to Cromwell in the Banqueting House at Whitehall on March SI. Oliver, in reply, asked time to deliberate. On April 3 he refused the title, and therewith the whole proposed new Constitution, but not in express or peremptory terms. " I have not been able to find it my duty to God and you to undertake this charge under that title." On April 8 he repeated his refusal, but in an even more enigmatic and hesitating form -hinting that he desired first to be satisfied of many things in the Humble Petition and Advice. Seizing the possibility of compromise which this invitation held out, the House appointed a committee to confer with him. Of the succeeding conferences there are many, but mutilated and confused, accounts. These extraordinary debates between Oliver and the committee took place on April 11, 16, 20 and 21. From the mass of involution and logomachy it is possible to disentangle Oliver's clear, strong, rugged conviction that, though the legal arguments for the kingly title were strong, they did not establish the necessity of it but only its convenience ; and that this was counterbalanced by the offence which the title would give to the army. The other objections taken by Cromwell to the Humble Petition and Advice were of minor import.

Oliver's rejection of the Petition and Advice in its first form disconcerted and amazed his supporters in the House. On May 8 several officers of the army petitioned the House not to press his Highness further ; and at last, on May 19, the Parliament resolved by 77 to 45 to insert the title of Protector instead of that of King in the Petition and Advice. As so amended, it was presented to Cromwell on May 25, 1657, and received his assent. Once again the army officers had triumphed by deciding Oliver's indecision ; once again their want of practical sense had frustrated a settlement of the nation ; and the lawyers who had boasted that they would make penknives of the soldiers' swords hung their heads in sullen defeat.

Summarised quite briefly, the Humble Petition and Advice laid down that Oliver should bear the title of Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and should during his lifetime declare his successor; that he should call Parliaments consisting of two Houses once in three years at least ; the qualifications of elected and elector were laid down ; the Second House was to consist of seventy persons named by the Protector ; a yearly revenue of £1,300,000 was provided ; a Privy Council of twenty was prescribed ; and finally, terms of religious toleration were set out. At the same time it gave Cromwell a retrospective ratification of his government. Clause 12 ratified his Acts and Ordinances for the sale of Crown and Church lands ; and Clause 16 ratified all other Acts and Ordinances not contrary to the Humble Petition and Advice itself.

Before the Parliament reassembled in January, 1658, Oliver had issued the writs summoning the members of the Second House. The list of these members contains nine peers and sixty-one commoners.

Accordingly, when Parliament again met on January 20, 1658, it consisted of two Houses, and Oliver opened it in the House of Lords in the ancient manner. But the face of the Lower House was now seriously changed. By Clause 3 of the Humble Petition and Advice the excluded members were now freely admitted, with the result that over 100 (Cromwell himself stated them at 120) of bitter enemies of the Government were now present. Oliver had also taken more than forty of his best managers from the Commons to help towards forming his new Second House, with the further result that the handling of his business in the Lower House suffered correspondingly. The disastrous consequence of this double change became quickly apparent. Led by the Republican newcomers under Scot and Heselrige and by the now recalcitrant officers, who objected to the very existence of a Second House, the Commons set themselves to question factiously the title and powers of that House. Oliver tried personal intervention, and summoned both Houses to his presence (January 25), exhorting them to unity and particularly to an honest acceptance of the Humble Petition and Advice as a working Constitution. His efforts were vain. The Republican party in the Commons had ramifications in the City and in the army ; and an intrigue was set on foot to promote a petition in both those quarters. Under cover of specious demands for the right of Parliament to control taxation and for the irremovability of soldiers and officers except by a court-martial, the petition aimed at a Commonwealth. There was to be sent up at the same time, if rumour spoke truly, another petition supported by ten thousand persons demanding the restoration of Charles Stewart. As part of the Republican intrigue, it was intended, on the presentation of the first of these petitions, to pass a vote in the House to ask for a limitation of the Protector's power over the army, and, if need were, to supersede him by Fairfax.

Second House was merely a side-wind by which to raise the larger question of his own position, and so to tear up the constitutional settlement of the Humble Petition and Advice. But it was not till he received news of the intrigue between the Republicans in the House and his army that he saw its full significance. In a hurricane of wrath, and with a swiftness of decision characteristic of him in his greatest moments, he dissolved the Parliament (February 4, 1658).

The dissolution was promptly followed by the arrest of Hugh Courtney, John Rogers the preacher, Major-General Harrison and John Carew. The immediate danger from his own army Cromwell met with equal promptitude. Two days after the dissolution he summoned the officers to the Banqueting House, and there in a two hours' harangue so prevailed with them that all, with the exception of seventeen or eighteen, swore to stand by him and the cause. Lambert was dismissed with a pension ; and six officers of the Protector's own regiment, after a few days spent in futile reasoning with them, were cashiered. They were all Anabaptists.

During the few remaining months of his life Oliver's Government stood at its greatest height of power. Abroad his arms had been successful and his influence decisive ; at home all opposition and intrigue, Royalist and Republican alike, had been beaten down, and his hold over his army remained unshaken. There is even some evidence that he had gained over such Commonwealth men as Ludlow, Rich, and Sir Henry Vane. If he had lived to meet the Parliament which he intended to call late in the year the probability is great that he would have secured that recognition of his Government and that financial support from Parliament which in February, 1658, he had only missed through an unnatural combination of Royalist and Republican intrigue.

But it was not to be. On September 3 he died ; leaving an unsanc-tioned military absolutism to be administered by a man who had no hold whatever over the army, no prestige, no administrative gift, no force of character. On the following day, September 4, 1658, Richard Cromwell was proclaimed Protector. At some time during Oliver's last illness he had verbally nominated Richard as his successor. On all hands, by army and country alike, the new Protector's accession was peacefully acknowledged ; and a fortnight later the officers at Whitehall unanimously adopted a loyal address to him.

But this unanimity quickly disappeared. Intrigue against the civil power began afresh in the army; and early in October a petition was presented by the malcontents, praying that Fleetwood might be appointed General of all the forces with power to grant commissions, and that none should be cashiered but by court-martial. Fleetwood himself communicated the petition to Richard, who, however, firmly refused to part with the power of the sword. For the moment the agitation was quieted by Fleetwood and Desborough (October 8 and 18); and hereupon Fleetwood was appointed Lieutenant-General of all the forces. But in November the agitation among the officers recommenced. They had met several Fridays in succession at St James' ; but until November 12 it is distinctly stated that they meddled not with the affairs, civil or military. On that day they began to break out and to hint at some alterations in the army. Accordingly, on November 19 Richard again met the officers with the object of remaining on good terms with his army. To all appearance he succeeded in again quieting them. " He courted them at a high rate" says Whitelock. A fortnight later Thurloe wrote to Captain Stoakes that those little notions that were in the army were all quieted and things in good order (November 25, 1658).

Parliaments, in which the redistribution of seats (the disfranchisement of the lesser boroughs and an increase in the representation of the counties) had served only to produce a strong and independent country gentlemen's party, the Government now resolved to fall back on the old electoral model. The representation of the counties was cut down to two knights each, and the petty boroughs received back their franchise. For the Second House the full number of 70 was summoned; but only 44 at any time appeared, some declining the summons out of disdain, whilst others were in their commands at home or abroad. As before, Heselrige, though summoned to the Lords, sat in the Commons, being elected for Leicester town. The Upper House therefore remained in this Parliament as despised a nonentity as it had been in the last one. When the Commons were summoned to the Lords to hear Richard's speech at the opening, not more than twelve or fifteen members of the Lower House obeyed.

On February 1, 1659, a Bill was introduced for the recognition of Richard's title as Protector. This Bill, which rekindled the fires of faction and intrigue, was put forward by Thurloe ready-drawn, and represented the desires of the Court, civilian, and legal parties. In opposition to the measure were ranged the Republicans, led by Ludlow and Heselrige-an opposition intent on remodelling the Humble Petition and Advice by additional clauses which should recover to the Parliament the power over the militia and the abolition of the Protector's veto. The votes of the House, taken on February 21, amounted to the acceptance of the principle of such remodelling. It is true that the courtiers were strong enough three days later to pass by 176 to 98 a vote empowering the Protector to issue orders to the fleet. But this vote was not intended in any quarter as a settlement of the constitutional question of the command of the forces. It was to divert the attention of the House from this crucial question that the courtiers directed the debate to the problem of the Second House and its recognition, as a preliminary to the greater problem of the fundamentals. On March 28 it was resolved to recognise the Upper House during the current Parliament. The numbers on this division (198 to 125) probably represent the respective strengths of the two parties, Court and Republican.

Council in supporting Richard. Whitelock attributes the succeeding coup d'état to the Wallingford House party and ascribes it to the personal ambition of Fleetwood. But it is clear that the Commonwealth men in the army were at one with the Grandees (the Wallingford House party) in desiring to put an end to a Parliament in which the Court party were proving too strong for the Republicans. Nehemiah Bourne's account of Richard's fall distinctly states that the Republican party in the House, finding itself defeated, applied to the officers of the army. Several debates were held, but the superior officers were despondent; nor was it till the generality of the officers took heart and began to work upon the Grandees, that these began to incline towards reviving the good old cause.

According to this view (which is borne out by Edward Phillips' narrative in his continuation of Baker's Chronicle), Richard's change of front could only have taken place on April 21. But against this view there must be set several statements. Writing to Lockhart on April 14, Thurloe says, " His Highness a few days since said that God had revealed it to him that he must sink with or stick to the party." Being asked who they were, he said, " The Commonwealthsmen in the House." " Who were they ? " he was asked, and he answered, " Sir Arthur Heselrige and Sir Harry Vane. Charles Stewart and his family must be disowned." This highly suspicious statement would seem to indicate that Richard had begun to change possibly even before the army petition. Again, Lord Broghill says that Richard gave a commission to Fleetwood and Desborough to hold a Council of War at Wallingford House. This meeting was probably that which was held on April 13. At Richard's request Broghill attended the meeting and thwarted the designs of the Wallingford House men. He then persuaded Richard to revoke that commission, and Richard seems to have done so on the following day, going himself to Wallingford House for that purpose, and, after listening quietly to the debate for an hour, rising and dissolving that Council. Nehemiah Bourne's statement, that "they so far obeyed him as to forbear any general meeting," may refer to this particular juncture. Finally, yet another version, but probably a disingenuous one, is contained in Sir Henry Vane's words spoken in the great debate in the House on April 18, "I heard it abroad and from one in the Council Chamber-I am not able to name the person-that the occasion of the calling together this Council [of War] was by his Highness on purpose to try if they [the soldiers] would take commissions from him exclusive of the Parliament." In the absence of any detailed record of the proceedings of the officers during this crucial period, April 8-18, the point must be left uncertain. Thurloe's statement, if it be accepted, must be read as confirming Bourne's assertion that Fleetwood and Desborough and others went to Richard and dissuaded him from urging the point of the generalship by his courtiers in the Parliament ; *' which he promised them he would, and that there should be nothing done on it." If true, this must have been prior to the votes in the House on April 18.

These votes carried with them by implication that the command of the army was now to be in the Protector and the Parliament. Richard summoned the officers to Whitehall on the same day, and there with threats bade them dissolve their General Council of Officers. Three days later, on Thursday, April 21, the Mayor and Aldermen of the City presented a petition to Richard declaring their resolution to stand by him and the two Houses ; but they were followed by the officers of the City trained bands with a representation in favour of the army petition, Richard sent for his Life Guards, but even his own regiment marched away and went over to the army, and all the force that Richard's friendly colonels could raise for him did not amount to three companies or two troops. Another report puts the situation more clearly, " Thursday night all the regiments here, both horse and foot, were in arms. That of the late Lord Pride marched into Whitehall without opposition. His Highness gave orders to Colonel Hacker's and other regiments to march to Whitehall for the preservation of his person; but, having before received other orders from the Lord Fleetwood, they with all the rest obeyed his Excellence's [Fleetwood's] orders rather than those of his Highness." That night Fleetwood and Desborough were closeted with Richard till eleven o'clock, " and then declared their full satisfaction in what his Highness had then said to answer the desires of, and to live and dye with the armies."

The result of this coup fêtât was quickly seen. On the following day (April 22) Richard signed a commission dissolving the Parliament. In face of the military revolt engineered by Fleetwood he had yielded to force, had thrown over the Parliament and with it the last uncertain chances of constitutionalism, and had thereby signed the death-warrant of his dynasty and of the Commonwealth. Henceforth till the Restoration anarchy and the sword prevailed in the land.

If the intention of the Wallingford House party had been to retain Richard as a tool or puppet, and with him the Protectorate, but shorn of the command of the army and shorn also of the veto, they quickly found that they could not prevail against the now rampant republicanism of the inferior officers. On the very next day (April 23) the Council of Officers sitting at Wallingford House at once took the direction of affairs, debating the settlement of the government : whether it should be by way of the Humble Petition and Advice, by a recall of the Rump, or by again a new constitution. The Grandees of the army wished for a nominal or mere figure-head Protector ; but the inferior officers, who on the same day held a Council of their own at St James', demanded a republic.

The ecclesiastical history of this period is simply a record of confusion. The key to the religious problems of the Commonwealth is to be found in the conflict between the political necessity which drove Oliver to attempt to conciliate the Presbyterians and that exalted conception of freedom and toleration which distinguished him beyond all his contemporaries. So irreconcilable were these two conflicting interests that to the end of the Commonwealth no religious settlement was ever arrived at. The triumph of the army meant that of the principle of toleration ; but this victory never obtained full legislative expression, and the remains of the Presbyterian system were left cumbering the ground. Its position as the legally recognised form of national Church government was never legally abrogated ; and all attempts at a religious settlement subsequent to 1649 took the form of such a definition of toleration as would secure the liberty of individual men and congregations on the one hand, and as would guard the State against the dangers of Popery and blasphemy on the other.

In Cromwell's second Parliament the antagonism between his own large-minded tolerance and the Parliament's intolerance was still more strikingly evinced. He intervened with the object of saving James Naylor from persecution at the hands of the Commons and refused their Bill for catechising. But he accepted the scheme of fundamentals of belief as set out in the eleventh article of the Humble Petition and Advice. This is therefore the first, and down to the fall of Bichard Cromwell it remained the only, legislative pronouncement of the Commonwealth period on the subject of toleration.

It is this impotent and delayed legislation which accounts for all the chaos of parochial Church affairs throughout the period. Presbytery, voluntary association, separatist congregation and sect existed side by side, with no legally enforced definition of their position. As between them all the civil power was only concerned to keep the peace, while maintaining a watchful eye on Papist and Episcopalian. And indeed, save in a disjointed, piecemeal way, the Protector's Government never made any attempt at restoring the broken machinery in the higher ranges of Church organisation. The question of tithes was never settled : the problem of providing maintenance for ministers was whittled down to the mere granting of augmentations out of certain specific funds vested ad hoc in the hands of the Plundered Ministers Committee and of the Trustees for Maintenance, a scheme comparable to the later Queen Anne's Bounty rather than to anything else. Finally, the only provision made for any trial of the fitness of ministers and for their ordination was contained in the imperfect machinery of the Committee for Scandalous Ministers and the Commissioners for Ejection and the Commissioners for Approbation or the Triers.

Confused and difficult as is the subject of the Commonwealth Church organisation, that confusion and difficulty sink into nothing by the side of the perplexity of the problem of Commonwealth finance. In 1649 the Exchequer, so far as its receipt was concerned, was completely out of joint and practically non-existent. The Customs and Excise, the former of which had constituted the main branch of Exchequer revenue, were worked through the Customs House and the Excise Office respectively. The older and more insignificant and casual sources of Crown revenue formerly received in the Exchequer had either disappeared, or were administered by a parliamentary committee styled the Committee for the King's Revenue. Many, too, of the Exchequer officials had followed the King to Oxford, carrying with them the mysterious knowledge which was necessary for the working of that ancient institution.

(1) The Committee for the Advance of Money, sitting at Haberdashers' Hall, appointed in November, 1642, to provide the sinews of war for the Parliamentary party ; and the Committee for Compounding (with Delinquents), sitting at Goldsmiths'1 Hall. From April, 1650, these two Committees are practically identical ; after February, 1654, they are known as the Committee for Sequestration.

(2) The Prize Office, in Threadneedle Street.

(3) The Revenue Committee. This had formerly been styled the Committee for the King's Revenue, but at the establishment of the Commonwealth its title was changed to that of the Committee for the Public Revenue. It administered such parts of the old Crown revenues as had formerly been paid through the sheriff's, viz. casualties, the Crown lands, etc.

(4) The Treasurers at War, who administered the regular monthly assessments.

(5) The Treasurers for Sale of Dean and Chapter's lands.

(6) The Excise Office in Broad Street in the City.

(7) The Customs, managed from the Custom House.

But there were also other committees which, while apparently not administering, i.e. receiving and handling funds (being themselves fed by funds from the other treasuries above named), had the disposal of funds ; that is to say, were empowered to issue money warrants. Such were the Navy Treasury, the Treasury of the Council of State, and so on. Finally the Committee for taking the Accounts of the Kingdom, which sat at Worcester House or the Duchy House, was an audit committee.

In so rapid a survey as this it is quite out of the question to attempt a statement of income and expenditure for the years 1649-54 -that is for the years during which the multifarious Treasuries above described were in existence. But from 1654 onwards it is possible to furnish a brief statement and authentic figures. During the five-and-a-half years from Michaelmas, 1654 (when the Exchequer opened its doors) to Easter, 1660, the total income received in the Exchequer was ,£4,745,358, yielding an average of <£"862,791 per annum. The total receipts of the Treasurers at War during the period June 24, 1654, to Easter, 1660, from assessment was =£3,576,174, or an average of ,£"621,908 per annum. The total average annual yield therefore of all revenue (Exchequer revenue and assessments combined) was £1,484,699 per annum. It must be borne in mind that these figures do not include the following items :

(1) Such portions of the receipts from the sale of, and the doubling upon1, Crown lands (which from 1649 onwards produced ,£1,993,951) as were realised within the above period of five years and a half, since this fund was separately administered by its own Treasurers ;

(2) the similar portions of the moneys raised by the sale of Dean and Chapter lands (which from 1649 onward produced ,£'980,724 by August 31,1650, and possibly a further £"503,178 later), since this fund also was likewise separately administered. Of the sale of Bishops' lands no account has survived ; but the sale had probably been completed, and the money expended, before 1654;

(3) the ecclesiastical revenues which were administered by the Trustees for the Maintenance of Ministers. This fund amounted to roughly <£"110,000 per annum ;

(4 and 5) the revenue of Scotland and that of Ireland.

The figures, given above, however, include all receipts from sequestrations from September 29, 1654, onwards, as from that date all such moneys were received by the Receivers-General of the Counties and by them were accounted for in the Exchequer.

The present writer has calculated that on an average there was a deficit of from ^400,000 to £500,000 yearly on the total expenditure of the three kingdoms. In the statement for the year 1659, which is printed in the Commons Journals and in the Report on the Dartmouth MSS, the total revenue for England, Scotland, and Ireland is given as