The downfall of the Protector was accomplished, although he still resided at Whitehall. The question was that of founding a government. The leaders of the army looked with little favor upon the Republic; they had strongly supported and participated in the tyranny of Cromwell, and they dreaded the increasing progress of the Royalists; it was against them that they had allied themselves with the old Republican leaders in order to submit to their yoke a phantom Protector. It was also in opposition to them that they resolved to exterminate all that remained of the Republic, the remnants of the Long Parliament expelled by Cromwell in April, 1653. It was a mere handful of men, the majority already old and wearied by political struggles, who thus assembled together on the 7th of May, 1659, and returned to that place of assemblage from which they had been so roughly ejected; forty-two members only were there, their former speaker, Lenthall, at their head. The latter had for a long time hesitated, wishing to preserve what he already called his peerage in the new House of Lords of Cromwell; but when the line of members passed near his door, he joined them, being unable to resist the desire to see once more the hall of the Long Parliament. The general officers awaited them at the door, congratulating them as they passed in, and promising to live and die with them. {294} Scarcely had they been restored and placed once more in possession of the government by the leaders of the army, when the Republicans of the Long Parliament found themselves confronted with legal difficulties. The Presbyterians, excluded from the House of Commons in 1648, claimed their seats; fourteen of them presented themselves at the door in the name of their companions in misfortune: there were two hundred and thirteen of them. The Republicans peremptorily repelled them. Prynne contrived to slip into the Hall, and he remained imperturbably in his place, notwithstanding the insults of Haslerig and Vane. The sitting was declared closed. Prynne was the last to leave; but when he returned in the evening every outlet was guarded, and placards posted up in all parts confirmed the exclusion already pronounced against all members who had been strangers since 1648 to the sittings of the Long Parliament. "A worse and more oppressive war against the Commons," said Prynne, "than was ever waged against them by the beheaded king and the Cavaliers."