"--Thurloe, vii. 416.]
hastened to offer their congratulations to his son. Yet, fair and tranquil
as the prospect appeared, an experienced eye might easily detect the
elements of an approaching storm. Meetings were clandestinely held by the
officers;[a] doubts were whispered of the nomination of Richard by his
father; and an opinion was encouraged among the military that, as the
commonwealth was the work of the army, so the chief office in the
commonwealth belonged to the commander of the army. On this account the
protectorship had been bestowed on Cromwell; but his son was one who had
never drawn his sword in the cause; and to suffer the supreme power to
devolve on him was to disgrace, to disinherit, the men who had suffered so
severely, and bled so profusely, in the contest.
These complaints had probably been suggested, they were certainly fomented,
by Fleetwood and his friends, the colonels Cooper, Berry, and Sydenham.
Fleetwood was brave in the field, but irresolute in council; eager for the
acquisition of power, but continually checked by scruples of conscience;
attached by principle to republicanism, but ready to acquiesce in every
change, under the pretence of submission to the decrees of Providence.
Cromwell, who knew the man, had raised him to the second command in the
army, and fed his ambition with distant and delusive hopes of succeeding
to the supreme magistracy.
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