reduced Henry at once to the condition of a suppliant; he signified his submission by a letter to the speaker, obeyed the commands of the house to appear before the council,[b] and, having explained to them the state of Ireland, was graciously permitted to retire into the obscurity of private life.  The civil administration of the island devolved on five commissioners, and the command of the army was given to Ludlow,[c] with the rank of lieutenant-general of the horse.[2]

But the republican leaders soon discovered that they had not been called to repose on a bed of roses.[d] The officers at Wallingford House began to dictate to the men whom they had made their nominal masters, and forwarded to them fifteen demands, under the modest title of “the things which they had on their minds,” when they restored the long parliament.[3] The house took them successively into consideration.  A committee was appointed to report the form of government the best calculated to secure the liberties of the people; the duration of the existing parliament was

[Footnote 1:  Carte’s Letters, ii. 242.  Clar.  Pap. 500, 501, 516.]

[Footnote 2:  Thurloe, vii. 683, 684.  Journals, June 14, 27, July 4, 17.  Henry Cromwell resided on his estate of Swinney Abbey, near Sohan, in Cambridgeshire, till his death in 1674.—­Noble, i. 227.]

[Footnote 3:  See the Humble Petition and Address of the Officers, printed by Henry Hills, 1659.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1659.  June 15.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1659.  July 6.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1659.  July 18.] [Sidenote d:  A.D. 1659.  May 15.]

limited to twelve months; freedom of worship was extended to all believers in the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Trinity, with the usual exception of prelatists and papists; and an act of oblivion, after many debates, was passed, but so encumbered with provisoes and exceptions, that it served rather to irritate than appease.[1] The officers had requested[a] that lands of inheritance, to the annual value of ten thousand pounds, should be settled on Richard Cromwell, and a yearly pension of eight thousand pounds on her “highness dowager,” his mother.  But it was observed in the house that, though Richard exercised no authority, he continued to occupy the state apartments at Whitehall; and a suspicion existed that he was kept there as an object of terror, to intimate to the members that the same power could again set him up, which had so recently brought him down.  By repeated messages, he was ordered to retire; and, on his promise to obey, the parliament granted him the privilege of freedom from arrest during six months; transferred his private debts, amounting to twenty-nine thousand six hundred and forty pounds, to the account of the nation, gave him two thousand pounds as a relief to his present necessities, and voted that a yearly income of ten thousand pounds should be settled on him and his heirs, a grant easily made on paper, but never carried into execution.[2]