The filling up of the present Parliament by the restoration of the secluded members, and by new elections for other vacancies, meant the reconstituting of the Long Parliament entire, just as it had been while negotiations with Charles I.were going on, and before the Army, in order to stop these negotiations and bring in the Republic, ejected the Royalist and Presbyterian members.

Such a reconstituted Parliament, if time were given it, would also inevitably recall Charles II., though it might do so after a preliminary compact with him on the basis of that Treaty of Newport which had been going on with his father late in 1648, and which might be regarded as still embodying the views of the Presbyterians respecting Royalty and its limits.

Of the two methods the Cavaliers or Old Royalists naturally preferred that which would bring in Charles most speedily and with the fewest conditions; but, as they were outnumbered by the Presbyterians or New Royalists, they were willing to accept _their_ method.

To the genuine Rumpers, of course, either proposal was dreadful.

To retain the power themselves, enlarging their House, if at all, only by new elections permitted by themselves, and not to part with their power unless to a new Parliament the qualifications for which should have been carefully pre-determined by themselves, was the only procedure by which they could hope to preserve the Commonwealth.