For surely it is odd that 'such a terrible Protector this; no getting of him overset!' should have been compelled to contend with the notorious and obstinate incredulity of the members of his Parliament regarding the late attempt to overset him? Yet Cromwell's speech of September 1656 is pervaded with expressions such as these, regarding the 'bold and dangerous Insurrection' of March 1655,--'I think the world must know and acknowledge, that it was a general design,'--'I doubt if it be believed, that there was any rising,' either in North Wales or at Shrewsbury, or on Marston Moor, 'at the very time when there was an Insurrection at Salisbury'--' therefore, how men of wicked spirits may traduce Us in that matter--I leave it!'[59] Surely 'sluggish mortals, saved from destruction,' not caused by secret agencies, but from an actual 'Rebellion,' which threatened to bring every one of them into 'blood and confusion,' need not be required to believe in the very existence of so great and conspicuous a danger! And Cromwell felt that he could not afford to leave that 'matter' untouched. A suspicion was prevalent, during the whole of Cromwell's reign, that plots were manufactured to suit his purposes. He knew that full well; he knew also the danger of such a suspicion. The surmises of the 'men of wicked spirits,' were those 'half tales,' that 'be truths.' It had been hoped that such a 'real plot' as 'the late Insurrection,' would give that suspicion a quietus. When it was safely transacted, Thurloe and his associates congratulated each other over that hope.[60] But it was not fulfilled. Hence arises the tone of angered honesty, which Cromwell so repeatedly assumed when he addressed his Parliament, and Carlyle's indignant protest--'What a position for a hero, to be reduced continually to say he does not lie!'