19. =Oliver's Second Parliament, and the Humble Petition and Advice. 1656.=--War with Spain was a necessary consequence of the seizure of Jamaica, and, in =1656=, Oliver called a second Parliament, to give him money. Yet it was certain that any freely-elected Parliament would try to grasp authority for itself. When Parliament met, on September 17, Cromwell began by excluding about a hundred members who were likely to oppose him. After this, his relations with the House were smoother than they had been in =1654=--especially as news arrived that Stainer, with some of Blake's ships, had captured part of the Spanish treasure-fleet on its way from America; and, soon, thirty-eight waggons laden with Spanish silver, rolled through the London streets. Parliament voted the money needed, and Oliver, in return, withdrew the Major-Generals. Then there was discovered a plot to murder the Protector, and Parliament, anxious for security, drew up amendments to the Constitution, known as _The Humble Petition and Advice_. Members of the Council of State were to be approved by Parliament, and the power of excluding members from the House of Commons was to be renounced by the Protector. There was also to be a second House named in the first instance by the Protector, who was given power to exclude members subsequently named by himself or his successors from taking their seats. The object of this curious provision was to secure a house which might be trusted for all time to throw out measures opposed to Puritanism, even when they were supported by the House of Commons. Oliver was asked to take the title of king, with the right of naming his own successor. He refused the kingship, as the army disliked it, and also, perhaps, because he felt that there would be an incongruity in its assumption by himself. The rest of the terms he accepted, and, on June 26, =1657=, before the end of the session, he was installed as Lord Protector with greater solemnity than before. It was already known that, on April 20, Blake had destroyed a great Spanish fleet at Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe. On his way back, on August 7, he died at sea, and was brought home to be buried in Westminster Abbey. 20. =The Dissolution of the Second Protectorate Parliament. 1658.=--On January 20, =1658=, Parliament met for its second session. The House of Commons had to take back the hundred excluded members who were enemies of Oliver, and to lose a large number of Oliver's warmest supporters, who were removed to the other House. The Commons had no longer an Oliverian majority, and, without attacking the Protector himself, they now attacked the second House, which gave itself the airs of the ancient House of Lords. On February 4, in a speech of mingled sadness and irritation, Oliver dissolved his second Parliament. "The Lord," he said, "judge between me and you."