SPIRIT AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENT STILL MAINLY
ANTI-OLIVERIAN: THEIR FOUR MONTHS' WORK IN REVISION OF THE
PROTECTORAL CONSTITUTION: CHIEF DEBATES IN THOSE FOUR MONTHS:
QUESTION OF THE PROTECTOR'S NEGATIVES: OTHER INCIDENTAL WORK OF THE
PARLIAMENT: QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION AND OF THE SUPPRESSION
OF HERESIES AND BLASPHEMIES: COMMITTEE AND SUB-COMMITTEE ON THIS
SUBJECT: BAXTER'S PARTICIPATION: TENDENCY TO A LIMITED TOLERATION
ONLY, AND VOTE AGAINST THE PROTECTOR'S PREROGATIVE OF MORE: CASE OF
JOHN RIDDLE, THE SOCINIAN.--INSUFFICIENCY NOW OF OUR FORMER SYNOPSIS
OF ENGLISH SECTS AND HERESIES: NEW SECTS AND DENOMINATIONS: THE
FIFTH-MONARCHY MEN: THE RANTERS: THE MUGGLETONIANS AND OTHER STRAY
FANATICS: BOEHMENISTS AND OTHER MYSTICS: THE QUAKERS OR FRIENDS:
ACCOUNT OF GEORGE FOX, AND SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE QUAKERS TO
THE YEAR 1654.--POLICY OF THE PARLIAMENT WITH THEIR BILL FOR A NEW
CONSTITUTION: PARLIAMENT OUTWITTED BY CROMWELL AND DISSOLVED: NO
RESULT.

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