Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/307

 OLIVER CROMWELL 263 with little recognition of the change at the time, from its mediaeval to its modern basis. Born in 1599, the year when the London merchants met in Founders' Hall to project an East Indian voy- age, Cromwell entered the House of Commons in 1628, the year of the Company's first appeal to Parliament. His charter of 1657 inaugurated the three cyclic dates of Great Britain in the East. It was fitly commem- orated by the Battle of Plassey in 1757, and by the reconquest of India after the Sepoy Revolt, exactly one hundred years later. But before his strong hand could make its weight felt, a period intervened when there was no king in Israel. From the Battle of Edgehill, in October, 1642, to the last scene outside Whitehall in January, 1649, Charles, whatever may have been his faults, cannot be held accountable for the distresses of the East India Company. One Parliament, with the king, a majority of the Lords, and a minority of the Commons, sat at Oxford. Another Parliament, with a majority of the Commons and a minority of the Lords, sat at West- minster. It was with this London Parliament that the Company had to reckon. The Houses at Westminster could levy contributions in the capital, they collected the customs, and controlled the shipping in the Thames. In 1643 they put a curb on the Royalist members of the Company by demanding a forced loan of its ord- nance, " for the fortifying of the bulwarks, now in preparation for the security of the City." On its re- fusal, the Commons declared they would grant an order