Note (Back) — Chapter I

The government provided for by the Instrument was but indifferently successful. Between Cromwell and his parliaments relations were much of the time notoriously strained, and especially was there controversy as to whether the powers of Parliament should be construed to extend to the revision of the constitution. In 1657 the Protector was asked to assume the title of king. This he refused to do, but he did accept a new constitution, the Humble Petition and Advice, in which a step was taken toward a return to the governmental system swept away in 1649.[31] This step comprised, principally, the re-establishment of a parliament of two chambers—a House of Commons and, for lack of agreement upon a better designation, "the Other House." Republicanism, however, failed to strike root. Shrewder men, including Cromwell, had recognized all the while that the English people were really royalist at heart, and it is not too much to say that from the outset the restoration of monarchy was inevitable. Even before the death of Cromwell, in 1658, the trend was distinctly in that direction, and after the hand of the great Protector had been removed from the helm such a consummation was a question but of time and means. May 25, 1660, Charles II., having engaged to grant a general amnesty and to accept such measures of settlement respecting religion as Parliament should determine upon, landed at Dover and was received with all but universal acclamation.[32]