Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/118

 the House of Commons solely, and was all executive authority to be held in strict subjection to that House; or was the scheme of Government to be that 'of a single person and two Houses of Parliament,' as established by the 'Instrument of Government;' in other words, was the Government in theory to be strictly democratic, or was it to be fixed on bases in some degree independent of the popular will as reflected in the House of Commons, and to represent elements anterior to it in point of time, or considered superior to it in point of authority or knowledge? The Royalists and the Cromwellians both answered the question, in favour of the latter alternative. Their differences began when they had to decide who the single person and what the composition of 'the other House of Parliament' was to be. Between them was the blood of Charles I., and there was thus an ineradicable difference in the camp of those who agreed in principle. But neither were the pure Republicans nor Commonwealth men in any but the most difficult of positions, for they were not the majority of the nation, but only an energetic minority, in some respects in advance of their times, though not in all. In their hearts they had to acknowledge that if the voice of the people was consulted in a really free Parliament, as they professed to desire, the first popular demand would be one for their own expulsion from the Government, whatever else might follow. They were therefore constantly occupied with devices for staving off the day of the dissolution of the Rump. In substance their claim was that a majority in an already discredited assembly was privileged to overrule the real opinion of the country, to which they were unwilling to appeal; and meanwhile they were occupied with plans for substituting in the place of a real appeal—whenever the inevitable moment at length came—some artificial scheme of their own arrangement, which, while keeping their promises to the ear, would enable them to elude the true verdict of the nation, and renew their own tenure of power.

Meanwhile the situation of the Cromwellian party grew desperate. 'Will not the loins of an imposing Anabaptist or Independent be as heavy as the loins of an imposing prelate