Up to this time, as we have said, his career had been characterised by uninterrupted success; but the uniform good luck which had hitherto shown what daring could accomplish when upheld by an intelligent head and dauntless heart, now forsook him. Cromwell, who was aiming at arbitrary government in his own person, could not, on finding his authority thus openly disputed by the President of the Council, but have had misgivings that the man who had sufficient resolution to pass sentence of death upon the King might not be unwilling, should occasion arise, to perform the same office upon himself. It became necessary, therefore, for the accomplishment of his plans that Bradshaw’s power should be abridged; and though Parliament, on the 16th September, 1653, enacted that the continuance of the palatinate power of Lancaster should be vested in him, and he was also named one of the interim Council of State that was to meet relative to a settlement of the Government, he was no longer permitted to occupy an office of actual power and authority. On the 16th December, 1653, Cromwell was inaugurated Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Bradshaw, who was a thorough Republican, and who certainly had the courage of his convictions, was equally opposed to unlimited power, whether exercised by the King or by the Protector, at once set himself to counteract the authority of his former patron. In the first Parliament of the Protectorate he sat for his native county, but it was only for a very brief period, for scarcely had the representatives of the people assembled than they fell to questioning the Protector’s authority, when Cromwell, after surrounding the House with his guards, administered a corrective in the shape of a declaration promising allegiance to himself, which he required every member to sign, shortly after which he dismissed them unceremoniously to their homes.