were refused permission to take their seats, and many of them had been made prisoners. The Lords Commissioners thereupon rose, thinking that the counsel and suitors could not attend with freedom, and not being without apprehensions for their own personal safety. The Earl of Kent and Lord Grey de Werke asked Lord Commissioner Whitelock to go with them to the House of Peers, where they were sure to be protected. On their way thither they met Colonel Pride and Lord Grey de Groby, watching for obnoxious members, many of whom they had secured; but the Lords Commissioners were allowed to pass unmolested. They were advised by the assembled Peers to return to the Court of Chancery,but Whitelock would not act without the sanction of the House of Commons. He proceeded thither, and stated the doubt which he and his brother Commissioners entertained as to whether, in the existing confusion, they should sit or adjourn. The party now dominant, afraid of the imputation upon the army, that they interrupted the course of justice, advised the Commissioners by all means to sit, and proceed with business. Whitelock then went to the Court of Wards, where he was joined by the two Peers and Widdrington, and they sat till six in the evening, when the soldiers were gone, and all was tranquil. Meanwhile Pride excluded ninety-six members and imprisoned forty-seven-reducing the assembly, once so numerous and respectable, to a small number of individuals, who, in the quaint language of the times, were afterwards dignified with the appellation of the "Rump."

As soon as the Court rose, Whitelock and Widdrington went to the house of Lenthal, the Speaker and Master of the Rolls, in Chancery Lane, where they met General Cromwell, and had a long conversation with him respecting the present posture of affairs, he trying to persuade them that he still hoped for a settlement with the King. Two days afterwards he made them draw up a paper for general circulation, to palliate the violence offered to the House of Commons, and holding out a prospect of the

restitution of the secluded members.

But on the 23rd of December a debate arose in the Commons on the proposal for bringing "delinquents" to justice, in which the design of taking off the King was distinctly avowed. Several members made no scruple to