Before the 3rd of September, 1654, the day fixed by the Constitutional Instrument for the meeting of the First Parliament of the Protectorate, the 460 newly elected members, or the major part of them, had flocked to Westminster. They were a gathering of the most representative men of all the three nations that could be regarded as in any sense adherents of the Commonwealth. All the Council of State, except the Earl of Mulgrave and Lord Lisle, had been returned, some of them by two or three different constituencies. Secretary Thurloe had been returned; Cromwell's two sons, Richard and Henry, had been returned, Henry as member for Cambridge University; several gentlemen holding posts in his Highness's household had been returned. Of the old English peers, there had been returned the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Stamford, and Lord Dacres; and of the titular nobility there were Lord Herbert, Lord Eure, Lord Grey of Groby, and the great Fairfax. Among men of Parliamentary fame already were ex-Speaker Lenthall, Whitlocke, Sir Walter Earle, Dennis Bond, Sir Henry Vane _Senior_, Sir Arthur Hasilrig, Thomas Scott, William Ashurst, Sir James Harrington, John Carew, Robert Wallop, and Sir Thomas Widdrington; and of Army or Navy men, of former Parliamentary experience or not, there were Colonels Whalley, Robert Lilburne, Barkstead, Harvey, Stapley, Purefoy, Admiral Blake, and ex-Major-General Harrison. Some of these had been returned by two constituencies. Bradshaw was a member, with two of the Judges, Hale and Thorpe, and ex-Judge Glynne. Lawyers besides were not wanting; and Dr. Owen, though a divine, represented Oxford University. One missed chiefly, among old names, those of Sir Henry Vane _Junior_, Henry Marten, Selden, Algernon Sidney, and Ludlow; but there were many new faces. Among the thirty members sent from Scotland were the Earl of Linlithgow, Sir Alexander Wedderburn, Colonel William Lockhart, the Laird of Swinton, and the English Colonels Okey and Read. Ireland had also returned military Englishmen in Major-General Hardress Waller, Colonels Hewson, Sadler, Axtell, Venables, and Jephson, with Lord Broghill, Sir Charles Coote, Sir John Temple, Sir Robert King, and others, describable as Irish or Anglo-Irish.[1] [Footnote 1: Complete list gives in Parl. Hist, III. 1428-1433.]