nation, except a few who dreaded more from the alternative of military usurpation or anarchy than from an assembly which still retained the names and forms so precious in the eyes of those who adhere to the ancient institutions of their country.[408] _Little parliament._--It was now the deep policy of Cromwell to render himself the sole refuge of those who valued the laws, or the regular ecclesiastical ministry, or their own estates, all in peril from the mad enthusiasts who were in hopes to prevail.[409] These he had admitted into that motley convention of one hundred and twenty persons, sometimes called Barebone's parliament, but more commonly the little parliament, on whom his council of officers pretended to devolve the government, mingling them with a sufficient proportion of a superior class whom he could direct.[410] This assembly took care to avoid the censure which their predecessors had incurred, by passing a good many bills, and applying themselves with a vigorous hand to the reformation of what their party deemed the most essential grievances, those of the law and of the church. They voted the abolition of the Court of Chancery, a measure provoked by its insufferable delay, its engrossing of almost all suits, and the uncertainty of its decisions. They appointed a committee to consider of a new body of the law, without naming any lawyer upon it.[411] They nominated a set of commissioners to preside in courts of justice, among whom they with difficulty admitted two of that profession;[412] they irritated the clergy by enacting that marriages should be solemnised before justices of the peace;[413] they alarmed them still more, by manifesting a determination to take away their tithes, without security for an equivalent maintenance.[414] Thus having united against itself these two powerful bodies, whom neither kings nor parliaments in England have in general offended with impunity, this little synod of legislators was ripe for destruction. Their last vote was to negative a report of their own committee, recommending that such as should be approved as preachers of the gospel, should enjoy the maintenance already settled by law; and that the payment of tithes, as a just property, should be enforced by the magistrates. The house having, by the majority of two, disagreed with this report,[415] the speaker, two days after, having secured a majority of those present, proposed the surrender of their power into the hands of Cromwell, who put an end to the opposition of the rest, by turning them out of doors.