authority was not sufficient effectively to impose taxation. They demanded
advances from the City, and were roughly told that no advances would be
made except on the authority of a freely elected House. Would Monk support
them in this contest? He was asked to march into the City, to restore
order, and, as a sign of it, to destroy the ancient city gates. So far
Monk seemed to comply with the demands of his nominal masters. He overawed
the citizens, and executed the orders of the Parliament upon their
portcullises and gates. For the moment Parliament conceived its authority
to be vindicated. But with singular folly they accepted, with favour, an
absurd petition from Praise-God Barebone and his friends, who inveighed
against all who would question the power of the Rump Parliament, and
pressed for stern measures on all who presumed so much as to name the
restoration of the King, or who would not abjure any Government in the
hands of a single person. This roused the keen animosity of the officers,
and decided them to press on Monk an alteration of his course. Once more
he visited the City; but this time not as an enemy, but as a friend. In
good round terms he rated the Parliament for countenancing the wild
ravings of a dangerous rabble. He demanded that by a certain date they
should issue writs for a free Parliament and bring their own sittings to
an end. Their hopes were at once scattered to the winds; and in the wild
tumult of bonfires and rejoicings with which Monk's declaration was
celebrated in the City, they saw the death-knell of their own power. In
the licence of recovered liberty many toasted the King's health, and there
was none to say them nay.

Monk returned to Whitehall, and summoning some of the members to his
presence, he delivered to them in writing his views--equivalent to his
commands--as to the course which must be followed. He pointed out how all
Government was now subverted, and how necessary it was that it should be
repaired. He indicated his preference for a Commonwealth, and saw in a