‘Cromwell being informed during this debate that the parliament was sitting, and that it was hoped they would put a period to themselves, which would be the most honourable dissolution for them; hereupon he broke off the meeting, and the members of parliament with him left him at his lodgings and went to the house, and found them in debate of an act, the which would occasion other meetings of them again, and prolong their sitting.’ This was Vane’s bill, which he was pressing through its last stages, in disregard, according to Cromwell, of the pledge given the night before. Colonel Ingoldsby brought word to Cromwell of what the house was doing, ‘who was so enraged thereat, expecting they should have meddled with no other business but putting a period to their sitting without more delay, that he presently commanded some of the officers of the army to fetch a party {359} of soldiers, with whom he marched to the house.’ [1] [iv. p. 4.] The rest of the story is too familiar to need repetition. It is noticed, however, that he did not introduce the soldiers at once, but sat quietly in his place, till the motion was put from the chair, ‘that the bill do now pass.’ It was then, at the last moment, _i.e._ at which it was possible to stop the establishment of a permanent oligarchy under the forms of law, that he broke into a violent speech, which ended with his calling in the soldiers. His conduct at this crisis, as throughout his public life, corresponded exactly to the account which he gave of it himself. Into parliament, as into battle, he carried the ‘waiting spirit’ in which the sectaries believed. He trusted for guidance to a sudden inspiration interpreting the necessity of events. At last, at the critical point, just when he saw Lesley making a gap in his line at Dunbar, ‘the spirit of God was strong upon him,’ he would no longer consult ‘flesh and blood,’ but took the decisive step. The dissolution of the Rump was clearly inevitable so soon as it broke with and sought to defy its armed constituency, which, as Cromwell had always maintained, was an equally legitimate authority with itself, and far more truly representative. The violence of manner with which Cromwell turned it out and locked the door, of which, says Whitelock, even ‘some of his bravadoes were ashamed,’ is quite unique in his history, and doubtless aggravated the difficulty of subsequent reconciliation with the commonwealth’s men. The best explanation of it is a remark in one of his private letters; ‘I have known my folly do good, when affection (passion) has overcome my reason.’ It is a curious trait in his character, that when wrought up after much hesitation to a decisive act, of which he saw the danger, he gave the loose to that boisterous vehemence for which he had early been noted, but which he could generally suppress. The same trait appears in his behaviour at the signature of the death-warrant of Charles.