Page:Life of Oliver Cromwell.pdf/16

 himself to the members, "For slime! said he, get you gone; give place to honester men. I tell you, you are no longer a parliament; the Lord has done with you." Sir Harry Vane exclaiming against this conduct, "Sir Harry Vaneǃ" cried Cromwell with a loud voice, "O Sir Harry Vane! the Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vaneǃ" Taking hold of one of the members by his cloak, "thou art a whoremaster," cried he; to another, "thou art an adultdrer;" to a third, "thou art a drunkard and glutton;" and "thou an extortioner," to a fourth. "It is you," continued he, to the members, "who have forced me to this." Then pointing to the mace, he exclaimed, "take away that bauble!" after which, turning out all the members, he ordered the doors to be locked, and returned to Whitehall with the keys in his pocket.

Being willing, however, to amuse the people with the forur of a commonwealth, he proposed to give this subjects as parliament. For this purpose it was decreed, that the sovereign power should be vested in 144 persons under the name of its parliament; and he undertook to make the choice himself. This Parliament, composed of the dress of lunaticism and ignorance, was denominated Barebones Parliament, from the name of one of its members, a leather seller, whose assumed name, by a ridiculous usage of the age, was Praise God Barebones. They chose eight of their members to seek the Lord while the rest deliberated on substituting the law of Moses instead of the established code.

Cromwell did not find even this miserable assembly entirely flexible to his will, and as the nation despised them, he had no motive for retaining them. A party, devoted to his interests, not by consent earlier than the rest and observing this parliament had sat long enough; hastened to Crom-