That which I told you in the Banqueting House was true: that there are preparations of force to invade us, God is my witness, it hath been confirmed to me since, not a day ago, that the King of Scots hath an Army at the water's side, ready to be shipped for England. I have it from those who have been eyewitnesses of it. And, while it is doing, there are endeavours from some who are not far from this place to stir up the people of this town into a tumulting--what if I said into a rebellion? And I hope I shall make it appear to be no better, if God assist me. It hath been not only your endeavour to pervert the Army while you have been sitting, and to draw them to state the question about a Commonwealth; but some of you have been listing of persons, by commission of Charles Stuart, to join with any insurrection that may be made. And what is like to come upon this, the enemy being ready to invade us, but even present blood and confusion? And, if this be so, I do assign it to this cause: your not assenting to what you did invite me to by your _Petition and Advice,_ as that which might prove the Settlement of the Nation. And, if this be the end of your sitting, and this be your carriage, I think it high time that an end be put to your sitting. And I DO DISSOLVE THIS PARLIAMENT. And let God be judge between you and me!"[1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; and Carlyle, III. 348-353.] Thus, after a second session of only sixteen days, the Second Parliament of the Protectorate was at an end. Cromwell's explanation of his reasons for dissolving it is perfectly accurate. Through the first session the Parliament, as a Single House Parliament, had, by the exclusion of about ninety of those returned to it, been a thoroughly Oliverian body, and its chief work had been a reconstitution of the Protectorate on a definite basis; but through the second session this Parliament, though nominally the same, had been split into two Houses, the House of Lords wholly Oliverian, but the House of Commons, by the loss of a number of its former members and the readmission of the excluded, turned into an Anti-Oliverian conclave. Fourteen folio pages of the _Commons Journals_ are the only remaining formal records of the short and unfortunate Session. Oliver's Lords can have had little more to do than meet and look at each other. * * * * * There was to be no Parliament more while Cromwell lived. For seven months onwards from Feb. 4, 1657-8, he was to govern, one may say, more alone than ever, more as a sovereign, and with all his energies in performance of the sovereignty more tremendously on the strain.