bills trenching on these fundamentals he required a negative
absolutely. The question had come to the vote in a very subtle form.
The motion of the Opposition was that Bills should become Law without
the Protector's consent after twenty days, "provided that such Bills
contain nothing in them contrary to such matters wherein the
Parliament shall think fit to give a negative to the Lord Protector,"
while the amendment of the Oliverians or Court-party altered the
wording into "wherein the Single Person and the Parliament shall
declare a negative to be in the Single Person," thus giving Cromwell
himself, and not the Parliament only, a right of deciding where a
negative should lie. On this question the Oliverians were beaten by
109 votes to 85, and the decision would probably have caused a
rupture had not the Opposition conceded a good deal when they went on
to settle the matters wherein Parliament _would_ grant the
Protector a negative.[1]

[Footnote 1: Journals of dates and Godwin, IV. 134-139.]

As we have said, almost the sole occupation of the Parliament was
this revision of the flooring on which itself and the Protectorate
stood. They did, however, some little pieces of work besides. They
undertook a revision of the Ordinances that had been passed by the
Protector and his Council, and also of the Acts of the Barebones
Parliament; and they proposed Bills of their own to supersede some of
these,--especially a new Bill for the Ejection of Scandalous
Ministers, and a new Bill for Reform of the Court of Chancery. But of
all the incidental work undertaken by this Parliament none seems to
have been undertaken with so much gusto as that which consisted in
efforts for the suppression of Heresy and Blasphemy. Here was the
natural outcome of the Presbyterianism with which the Parliament was