prevented from offering violence to the elections?" {284} It was also towards a Parliament that the thoughts of the friends of the Protector inclined in England. Money was wanting. Thurloe had caused Mazarin to be sounded as to a loan of fifty thousand pounds sterling; but the cardinal, recently so assiduous in his attentions to Cromwell, was not disposed to make the same efforts in favor of his successors; he wished to live on good terms with him, and see his destiny accomplished without lending him efficient assistance to contribute artificially to secure his position. He pleaded his own embarrassments, and refused the money. Every resource had been exhausted; the time of arbitrary taxes and of the rule of the majors-general had passed away; with his genius, Cromwell had carried tyranny with him to the tomb. The council of the Protector resolved to convoke a Parliament. "We shall have great struggles to sustain," wrote Thurloe to Henry Cromwell; "the Republicans assemble every day and discuss as to what republic they ought to prefer, for they deem it certain that they have only to choose and take. They flatter themselves that a portion of the army will march with them. I trust that they are mistaken. However, I must say that I do not like the aspect of things, and my fears outweigh my hopes." Under the dominion of the fears expressed by Thurloe the new government did not dare to conduct the elections according to the electoral system prepared by the Long Parliament and twice practiced by Cromwell; the customs of the monarchy were revived in the hope of influencing the elections in the boroughs. Scotland and Ireland, recently incorporated with England, had no traditional right to invoke. To each were allotted thirty representatives, whose elections were necessarily to depend upon the army which ruled them. {285} The army of Ireland was commanded by Henry Cromwell; that of Scotland by Monk, who had shown himself favorable to the new power. The "other House" was convoked by letters patent similar to those which the king had formerly addressed to the peers of the kingdom. Thus no legal or consistent principle presided at the formation of the new Parliament. When it assembled on the 27th of January, 1659, after elections which had been much discussed, but had everywhere been freely accomplished, the diversity in its ranks was considerable. The Protector and his advisers were not, however, discouraged. "Our enemies in Parliament are numerous and bold beyond measure," wrote Lord Falconbridge to Henry Cromwell, "but more than doubly counterbalanced by the moderate party, so that if the results are slow and difficult to obtain, we do not see, as to the present, great cause for fear."