He
bound himself to live at peace with the Government, and to use his best
endeavours to persuade others to do so. In return he was to be left
unmolested in the free enjoyment of his estates, and in the exercise of
religion according to his conscience.
The politicians were now silenced; but a noisier and more troublesome
body had still to be reckoned with. In July, 1653, the General Assembly
was closed, and Resolutioners and Remonstrants were sent to the right
about together. Some measures, however, had to be taken to prevent them,
not from cutting each other's throats, which would have suited the
Government well enough, but from stirring up a religious war, which they
would inevitably have done if left to the free enjoyment of their own
humours. It was necessary so to strengthen the hands of one of the two
parties that the other should be compelled to refrain at least from open
hostilities. The Resolutioners, as the most tolerant and the
mildest-mannered, would have been those Cromwell would have preferred to
see in the ascendency. But the Resolutioners had acknowledged Charles,
and were, after their own fashion, in favour of the royal title. The
Remonstrants were accordingly preferred. They, indeed, denied the
authority of the Commonwealth over spiritual matters, but they also
denied the authority of Charles; and it was felt that at such a crisis
the civil allegiance was of more value than the religious.
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