Whether Cromwell's Second and Constitutionalized Protectorship was as agreeable to himself as his First had been may be doubted. He had accepted it, however, and meant to try it in all good faith. If, on the one hand, it was more limited, on the other it was attended with more of grandeur and dignity. Inasmuch as the actual Kingship had been offered him, and the new constitution was exactly that which would have gone with the Kingship, his Protectorship now, in the eyes of all the world, was equivalent to Kingship. When inducted into his First Protectorship, stately though the ceremonial had been, he had worn but a black velvet suit, with a gold band round his hat, and the chief symbol of his investiture had been the removal of his own military sword and substitution of the civil sword presented to him by Lambert. He had come into this Second Protectorship robed in purple, and holding a sceptre of massy gold. In heraldry, as well as in reality, he had taken his place among the Sovereigns of Europe. Round about Cromwell, even through the First Protectorate, there had been, as we have abundantly seen, much of the splendour and equipage of sovereignty. The phrases "His Highness's Court" and "His Highness's Household" had become quite familiar. On all public occasions he was attended and addressed most ceremoniously; when he rode out in state it was with life-guards about him, outriders in front, and coaches following; and the Order-Books of the Council prove that his relations to the Council were regulated by careful etiquette, and that his personal attendance at any of their meetings was regarded as a distinction. One observes also, as with Cromwell's approval, and in evidence of the conservatism that had been growing upon himself, a retention or even multiplication of aristocratic forms in his court and government. He had conferred knighthoods less sparingly than at first, though still rather sparingly;[1] in mentions of any of the old nobility, whether those that had become Oliverian and were to be seen at Whitehall, or those who lived in retirement, their old titles were scrupulously preserved,--e.g. "The Marquis of Hertford," "The Earl of Warwick," "The Earl of Mulgrave," "The Lord Viscount Lisle," "The Right Honourable the Lord Broghill"; and not only were official or courtesy titles still recognised, as by calling Fleetwood "My Lord Deputy," Whitlocke "Lord Commissioner Whitelocke," Fiennes "Lord Commissioner Fiennes," and Lawrence "Lord President Lawrence," but there had been a curious extension of usage in this last particular. The Protector's sons had become respectively "The Lord Richard Cromwell" and "The Lord Henry Cromwell" in the newspapers and in public correspondence; and, for some reason or other, probably on account of places held in his Highness's Household or Ministry apart from the Council, at least two of the Councillors had of late received similar courtesy-promotion. From the beginning