On the 23rd of February, 1657, suddenly Sir Christopher Pack, late Lord Mayor of London, craved leave to read a paper, which turned out to be drawn up in the form of a Remonstrance from Parliament to the Protector on the state of the country, and proposing a new form of government, including a House of Lords and himself as king. No sooner did the officers of the army, who had just lost their pro-consular dignity, and the other Republicans hear the proposition, than they rose, seized Pack, and hurried him from his seat to the bar of the House as a traitor. But those who were friendly to the proposition rose also in his defence, and after much commotion, the paper was not only read but debated. From this moment this subject occupied the House, with little intermission, till the 9th of May, or between two and three months. The title of the paper was changed from "A humble Address and Remonstrance," to "The humble Petition and Advice of the Parliament of England, Scotland, and Ireland." Its clauses were debated and carried one by one by a majority of a hundred to forty-four, and on the last day of the debate, March 26th, the blank left for the word king was filled in by a majority of one hundred and twenty-three to sixty-two. On the 31st of March an address was carried to the Protector at Whitehall by the Speaker and the House, praying that his Highness would be pleased to adopt their resolutions, and take upon him the state and title of king. Unquestionably, this was the greatest temptation which had ever been thrown in the way of Cromwell. To have made his way by his energy and talent from the simple condition of a gentleman-farmer to the Dictatorship of the nation, and now to have the crown and succession of these great kingdoms offered to him and his family by Parliament, was a matter which would not have been much opposed by an ordinary man. But Cromwell was not of a character lightly to accept even a crown. He showed clearly that he had a strong inclination to place himself and his posterity in that august position, but he knew too well that the honour had also its dangers and its black side. His acceptance would at once darken his fair fame by settling it in the conviction of three-fourths of the kingdom that he had only fought and put down the Stuarts to set up himself. There was, moreover, a formidable party opposed to kingship, and especially decided against it were his generals and the army. A deputation of a hundred of them had waited on him on the 27th, with an address on the subject, in which they assured him that such a thing would be "a scandal to the people, would prove more than hazardous to his person, and would pave the way for the return of Charles Stuart." Let the nation but become once more accustomed to the name of king, and it would recall the ancient race on the first opportunity.