Cromwell had in vain kept from any office his former comrade, Lambert, who had refused to take the oath to the new constitution. In vain had he been delivered of an austere witness by the death of Admiral Blake, who had succumbed beneath the fatigues of his triumph, after having won the victory of Teneriffe against the Spaniards. The Protector, who had not succeeded in making himself king, was conscious of a revolutionary agitation around him. On the 4th of February, without consulting or apprising any one, he repaired to the House of Lords and caused the House of Commons to be summoned. "I had very comfortable expectations," he said, "that God would make the meeting of this Parliament a blessing. ... It was granted I should name another House. I named it ... of men of your own rank and quality, who should shake hands with you, who would not only be a balance unto you. ... Yet, instead of owning a king, some must have I know not what, and you have not only disjointed yourselves but the whole nation, and that at the moment when the King of Scots hath an army at the water-side ready to be shipped for England. ... If this be your carriage, I think it high time that an end be put to your sitting, and I do dissolve this Parliament. And let God judge between you and me." "Amen!" replied a few of the opposition. {272} Cromwell sought in the army the support which Parliament refused him; he convoked a grand council of officers, and expounded to them the perils of the situation, with an invasion and an insurrection imminent, Charles Stuart united with the Spaniards, the Spaniards with the Cavaliers, the Cavaliers with the Levellers; civil war certain, and the army threatened with losing all the advantages which it had conquered at the price of its blood. Parliament was laboring to destroy the constitutional act which it had voted. Were the army and its leaders determined with him to preserve it? This was responded to with acclamations. Cromwell urged on his advantages. He had noticed some officers who were gloomy and silent. He addressed them personally. "We are ready," said Parker, a major commanding his own regiment, "to fight against Charles Stuart and his adherents, but we cannot engage ourselves blindly and for every case." Cromwell did not reply, but a few days later the adverse officers were dismissed, and they proceeded to range themselves around Lambert, who was cultivating flowers in his garden at Wimbledon.