There were various leaders in the army so nearly equal in rank and influence that there was sure to be strife for the chief command. Fleetwood had married a sister of the present Protector; Desborough was his uncle; his brother Henry, who was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, was a much more resolute and able man than himself; and Monk, in Scotland, had great power in his hands. The chief command in the army lay, by the late Instrument, in the Protector himself; but the officers of the army met and drew up a petition that the chief command should be conferred on some one of the generals who had shown his attachment to the cause by his services, and that no officer should be deprived of his commission except by sentence of a court-martial. Richard, by the advice of Thurloe, replied that he had appointed General Fleetwood lieutenant-general of the forces, but that to give up the supreme command would be to violate the "Petition and Advice," by which he held his own authority. This did not content the officers; they still held their meetings, a liberty which Oliver had wisely suppressed, and there were many suspicions expressed amongst them. They asserted that Henry Cromwell would soon be placed above Fleetwood, who, though conscientious, was very weak and vacillating, and they demanded that Thurloe, St. John and Pierpoint, Richard's ablest counsellors, should be dismissed, as enemies to the army. It was clear that a collision must take place between these parties and Thurloe, and his friends advised Richard to call a Parliament, by which he would not only be able to curb the power of the officers, but to raise money for the payment of the soldiers. The nation was keeping a large fleet under Ayscue, or Ayscough, part of which was cruising in the Baltic, to protect the English allies, the Swedes, against the Danes and Dutch, and another, under Montague, was blockading the Dutch coast. Money, therefore, was absolutely necessary to defray expenses, and Richard consented to call a Parliament. It was a necessary evil, a formidable undertaking. For the five months that passed before their meeting, Richard ruled with all the outward state, and with more than the quiet of his father. But his father, with all his vigour and tact, had never been able to manage a Parliament, most of the members of which immediately set about to overthrow him; what hope, then, that Richard could contend with such a restless and domineering body? It was absolutely impossible, and he was speedily made sensible of it. To introduce as many members of the Commons as he could favourable to his views, he departed from his father's plan of only calling them from the larger boroughs and the counties, and restored the franchise to the lesser and decayed boroughs. Every means was used besides to obtain the return of men favourable to the Government; and in Scotland and Ireland, from whence thirty members each were admitted, the elections