Cromwell had long been accused by his own party of aiming at the possession of the supreme power. At what time such ideas began to dawn in his mind is uncertain; but as he felt himself rising above all his contemporaries by the energy and the comprehensive character of his mind, there is no doubt that he secretly indulged them. Ludlow, Whitelock, Hutchinson, and others, felt that such was the spirit growing in him; and many of those who had most admired his genius fell away from him, and openly denounced his ambitious intentions as they became more obvious. The excellent Colonel Hutchinson and Sir Henry Vane charged him with the ruin of the Commonwealth. But Cromwell must have long felt that nothing but a military power could maintain the ascendency of those principles which he and his fellow Independents entertained and held sacred. The world was not prepared for them. The roots of royalty were too deeply struck into the heart of the nation by centuries of its existence, to be torn out by the follies and tyrannies of one family. But if a free Parliament, which it had been the proud boast of the Reformers to be the sole seat of the national power, could not exist; if the sitting body calling itself a Parliament could not even add to its members without endangering its own existence either from itself or from the jealousy of the army--what could exist? Clearly nothing but a dictatorship, and the strongest man must come uppermost. That strongest man was without a question Cromwell. As early as 1649 two Bills had been brought in to settle questions urgently demanded by the people, an act for a general amnesty, and for the termination of the present Parliament. On his return from the battle of Worcester, Cromwell reminded Parliament that these essential measures had not been completed. He carried the amnesty, so that all acts of hostility against the present Government previous to the battle of Worcester were pardoned, and the Royalists relieved from the fear of fresh forfeitures. The termination of Parliament was fixed for the 3rd of November, 1654, and the interval of three years was to be zealously employed in framing a scheme for the election of a new Parliament on the safest principles. At the same time Cromwell was living at Whitehall, in the house of the beheaded king, and with almost the state and power of a sovereign. He summoned, therefore, the council of the army, and discussed amongst them what they deemed necessary to be done.