of twenty-three members, to which the administration was entrusted.
Besides officers of the army and some London citizens, certain
representatives of the Parliament were granted seats upon it. Lambert
seemed, for the moment, to be completely master of the situation, and the
Royalists conceived hopes that they might secure for their own cause the
assistance of the leaders of the army. Fleetwood, however, lost his head,
and would not act without the permission of Lambert. In December he
escaped from responsibility by resigning his commission. Lambert would
have been a stouter ally; and overtures seem to have been made that he
should declare for the King, and that his daughter should be the wife of
Charles. Such proposals met with no encouragement from Hyde, and were
quietly dropped. Once more Lenthall, and the remnant of Parliament which
he represented, recovered their courage and showed some energy. They met
again on December 12th, and were able to assert their authority enough to
cashier some of the officers, and commit Lambert to the Tower. Such was
the position when Charles returned to Brussels with the scanty fruits of
his mission to Fontarabia. It looked as if once more that Rump Parliament,
which had crushed the monarchy and abolished the House of Lords, was
master of the situation. To one watching events from a distance like Hyde,
parties and persons must have appeared to chase one another in a
bewildering dance, like antic figures reflected on a screen.

[Illustration: GEORGE MONK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE (_From the original by Sir
Peter Lely, in the National Portrait Gallery_)]

Then it was that there came forward on the scene the man who, under the
guidance of circumstances rather than of any fixed line of policy, was to
be the main instrument of the restoration of the King. General Monk
[Footnote: George Monk was born in 1608, and very early sought his
fortune in war abroad, where he showed conspicuous bravery. In 1629 he