The hall of meeting was soon cleared. Harrison handed Speaker Lenthall down from the chair. Algernon Sidney had to be removed with some show of compulsion. Most of the members yielding to the inevitable trooped out without even this nominal resistance. "It's you," said Cromwell as they filed past him, "that have forced me to this, for I have sought the Lord night and day that He would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work." Glancing at the mace he asked "What shall we do with this bauble?" Ordering Captain Scott to remove it from the table, he bade him take it away. When all was over, carrying the Bill on Elections under his cloak, he returned to Whitehall. In the afternoon he dispersed--in like manner--the Council of State, assuring its members that they could sit no longer, the Parliament having been dissolved. "Sir," replied Bradshaw, "we have heard what you did at the House in the morning, and before many hours all England will hear it; but, Sir, you are mistaken to think that the Parliament is dissolved; for no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore take you notice of that." CHAPTER V. THE NOMINATED PARLIAMENT AND THE PROTECTORATE. As at the trial of the King, so in the ejection of Parliament, Cromwell had been thrown back on the employment of military force. Legality was clearly against him on both occasions. Yet it must not be forgotten that he was the last to concur in the employment of force; and that there was much to be said for his assertion that the sitting members were no Parliament. Reduced by the flight of Royalists to the King in 1642 and by Pride's Purge in 1648, they had, after an existence of twelve years and a half, little remaining to them of that representative character which is the very being of a Parliament. At all events, this time, at least, Cromwell was secure of popular favour. Not a single voice was raised in defence of the expelled members. In the evening some wag scrawled on the door of the Parliament House: "This House to be let unfurnished". The Parliament disappeared amidst general derision. For all that, the work before Cromwell was one of enormous--perhaps even of hopeless--difficulty. Without Parliament or King, the nation was thrown upon its own resources to reconstruct its institutions as best it might. It was inevitable that in such stress of storm it should hark back to the old paths, and should see no prospect of settled government, save in the restoration of the throne, or at least in the election of another Parliament. Yet this was the very thing that Cromwell and all who were associated with him most dreaded. It was but too probable that such a solution would sweep away not only Puritanism, but all hope of political reform. Everything for which the army had fought and for which the nation had suffered was at stake, and it was not in human nature--certainly not in Cromwell's nature--to make such a sacrifice without a struggle. That