Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/270

 , and for the revival of the Long parliament. They lost their influence with the officers, ‘being looked upon as self-seekers in that they are for a protector now they have got a protector of wax whom they can mould as they please, and lay aside when they can agree upon a successor’ (, vii. 666;, p. 660). They were therefore obliged to yield, and to recall the expelled members of the Long parliament (6 May 1659). At the same time Lambert's [see ] re-admission to the army still further diminished Fleetwood's influence. Nominally his authority was much increased by this revolution. He was appointed a member of the committee of safety (7 May), one of the council of state (13 May), and one of the seven commissioners for the reorganisation of the army (, pp. 248–51). The twelfth article of the army address of 13 May demanded that Fleetwood should be made commander-in-chief, and an act was passed for that purpose. He received his commission on 9 June 1659 (, vii. 679). But his powers were to last ‘only during the continuance of parliament, or till parliament should take further order,’ and all commissions were to be signed by the speaker (, p. 669;, pp. 251–3). On the suppression of Sir George Booth's rising [see, (1622–1684)], Lambert's brigade petitioned that these restrictions should be removed, Fleetwood's commission be made permanent, and other general officers be appointed (, p. 677). These demands were backed by a second petition signed by most of the officers of the English army (Old Parliamentary History, xxi. 460). Parliament answered by cashiering nine leading officers, and by voting Fleetwood's commission to be void, and vesting the chief command in seven commissioners, of whom he was to be one (11 Oct.). Fleetwood seems at first to have attempted to mediate. His wife told Ludlow ‘that her husband had been always unwilling to do anything in opposition to the parliament, that he was utterly ignorant of the contrivance of the officers at Derby to petition the parliament in so insolent a manner, and had not any part in their proceedings upon it afterwards’ (Memoirs, p. 295). Ludlow also says that Fleetwood was in the House of Commons when the vote of 11 Oct. was passed, and promised to submit to it (ib. p. 275). In the violent expulsion of parliament on 12 Oct. Lambert played the principal part. Fleetwood assisted but kept in the background. As before, when events came to a crisis he sided with the army. He was now again declared commander-in-chief (18 Oct.), but he was in reality little more than president of the council of officers. While Lambert went north to meet Monck, he stayed in London to maintain order in the city and union in the army. He made every effort, publicly and privately, to come to an agreement with Monck, and signed a treaty with his commissioners on 15 Nov. 1659, which Monck refused to ratify (, pp. 685–95). In a speech to the common council, Fleetwood endeavoured to vindicate the conduct of the army. ‘I dare say our design is God's glory. We have gone in untrodden paths, but God hath led us into ways which, if we know our own hearts, we have no base or unworthy designs in. We have no design to rule over others’ (Three Speeches made to the Lord Mayor, &c., by the Lord Whitelocke, the Lord Fleetwood, and the Lord Desborough, 8 Nov. 1659). With the same object and with equally little success Fleetwood engaged in epistolary controversy with Haslerig (The True Copy of Several Letters from Portsmouth, 1659). There is also printed a reply to Colonel Morley's remonstrance (, vii. 771), entitled ‘The Lord-General Fleetwood's Answer to Colonel Morley, and some other late Officers of the Army,’ 8 Nov. 1659, but this is denounced as ‘a mere fiction’ (Mercurius Politicus, 10–17 Nov. 1659). Defections increased rapidly, and in December it was simply a question with whom to make terms. Fleetwood was generally suspected of a desire to restore Richard Cromwell, and his acts were jealously watched by Vane's party (, p. 288). Ludlow urged him to recall the Rump (ib. p. 295). Royalist agents had for some time been soliciting him on behalf of the king, and he was now vigorously pressed by his brother, Sir William Fleetwood, and by Bulstrode Whitelocke to enter into negotiations with Charles, and to declare for a free parliament (, iv. 381, ed. 1853). If he did not seize the opportunity and make terms with the king, Monck would bring him back without terms. Fleetwood was on the point of agreeing with the city for this object, but he was held back by a promise to take no step of the kind without consulting Lambert, and by the opposition of the inferior officers (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 633). ‘He replied to the assistance and conjunction offered by the city, that God had spit in his face, and he was to submit to the late dissolved body of members of parliament’ (ib. pp. 633, 647;, p. 698). The soldiers declared for the restoration of the Rump (24 Dec.), which immediately deprived Fleetwood of his post of commander-in-chief (26 Dec.). His regiment of horse was given to Sir A. Cooper. Fleetwood was included in the vote of in-