APPENDIX G 591 of the 62 persons who were thus summoned, only 42 appear to have been sworn in during this Session, though three of the absentees afterwards sat in Richard Cromwell's Parliament. When the House was called over, 2 Feb. 1657/8, "in the order in w'*" they are retorned vnder the hand of the Gierke of the Pettibagge," 39 members were present, 6 were absent on account of their official duties,() 1 1 neither appeared nor made any excuse, and the remaining 6 were on the sick list.() The House, on a division, resolved that the absentees should "be required on this day three weeks to give their attendance on the service of this house," but two days later the Protector dissolved Parliament. It was the eleven members (who "being called Did not appeare nor any excuse made for them") who were mainly responsible for the ultimate failure of Cromwell's ambitious scheme. For they included the Earls of Warwick, Manchester, Mulgrave, and Cassillis, Viscount Saye and Sele, and Lord Wharton. (') "They were men," as Professor Firth observes, "whose political ability and experience would have been of great value to the government — leaders of the aristocratic section of the Puritan party in the past, and its best representatives now — men of the same type as the Whig noblemen who made the Revolution of 1688 and carried the Reform Bill of 1832." They were not personally hostile to the Protector, but they considered that by accepting a seat in his new assembly they would be countenancing the abolition of the old House of Lords, and they were not disposed to surrender the hereditary rights of their Order in return for such a doubtful distinction. () (*) Henry Cromwell and Chancellor Steele were in Ireland, General Monck in Scotland, Ambassador Lockhart in Paris, Chief Justice St. John was engaged at the Law Courts, and Fleetwood was in attendance upon the Lord Protector. None of these ever took their seats, with the exception of Fleetwood, who had been sworn in on the first day of the Session. C*) Three of these, i.e. Lord Eure, Sydenham, and (Sir) John Barkstead, were only temporarily indisposed, and had already taken their seats in the House. ('^) "The time for the meeting of these venerable Assemblies being come, none of the antient nobility, except the Lord Eure, adventured to come into the Other House. The Earl of Warwick himself, tho he ventured to marry his grandson to one of Cromwel's daughters, would not be perswaded to sit with Col. Hewson and Col. Pride, whereof the one had been a shoomaker and the other a drayman; and had they driven no worse trade, I know not why any good man should refuse to act with them. Divers of the gentry did not appear, yet others . . . were prevailed with to be of this Assembly." (Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 32). {'^) Their point of view is admirably expressed in a letter from Viscount Saye and Sele to Lord Wharton, dated 29 Dec. 1657: "The Peeres of England," he writes, " have ever bin as the beame keepinge both scales, Kinge and people, in an even posture, without incroachments one uppon another ... A barbones Parliament, as they call it, without choyce of the people att all is not worse then this, which is lay- inge asyde the Peeres of England whoe by byrth are to sitt, and pickinge out a com- pany to make another House of in theyr places at the pleasure of him that will rule — and withall call a few Lords, thearby causinge them to disowne theyre owne rights
