_A._ In the beginning of 1659 the Parliament passed divers other acts. One was, to forbid the meetings in council of the army-officers without order from the Protector and both houses. Another, that no man shall have any command or trust in the army, who did not first, under his hand, engage himself never to interrupt any of the members, but that they might freely meet and debate in the House. And to please the soldiers, they voted to take presently into their consideration the means of paying them their arrears. But whilst they were considering this, the Protector, according to the first of those acts, forbad the meeting of officers at Wallingford House. This made the government, which by the disagreement of the Protector and army was already loose, to fall in pieces. For the officers from Wallingford House, with soldiers enough, came over to Whitehall, and brought with them a commission ready drawn, giving power to Desborough to dissolve the Parliament, for the Protector to sign; which also, his heart and his party failing him, he signed. The Parliament nevertheless continued sitting; but at the end of the week the House adjourned till the Monday after, being April the 25th. At their coming on Monday morning, they found the door of the House shut up, and the passages to it filled with soldiers, who plainly told them they must sit no longer. Richard’s authority and business in town being thus at an end, he retired into the country; where within a few days, upon promise of the payment of his debts, which his father’s funeral had made great, he signed a resignation of his Protectorship. _B._ To whom? _A._ To nobody. But after ten days' cessation of the sovereign power, some of the Rumpers that were in town, together with the old Speaker Mr. William Lenthal, resolved amongst themselves, and with Lambert, Hazlerig, and other officers, who were also Rumpers, in all forty-two, to go into the House; which they did, and were by the army declared to be the Parliament. There were also in Westminster Hall at that time, about their private business, some few of those whom the army had secluded in 1648, and were called the secluded members. These knowing themselves to have been elected by the same authority, and to have the same right to sit, attempted to get into the House, but were kept out by the soldiers. The first vote of the Rump reseated was, that such persons as, heretofore members of this Parliament, have not sitten in this Parliament since the year 1648, shall not sit in this House till further order of the Parliament. And thus the Rump recovered their authority May the 7th 1659, which they lost in April 1653. _B._ Seeing there had been so many shiftings of the supreme authority, I pray you, for memory’s sake, repeat them briefly in times and order.