Having in his previous speeches dealt chiefly with the subject of the Kingship, and stated such various objections to the kingly title as the bad associations with it, the blasting as if for ever which it had received from God's Providence in England, and the antipathy to it of many good men, he here took up the rest of the _Petition and Advice_.

Approving, on the whole, of the spirit and contents of the document, and especially of the apparent rejection in it of that notion of perpetually-sitting Single-House Parliaments which he considered the most fatal fallacy in politics, and persistence in which by the Rump had left him no option but to dissolve that body forcibly and assume the Dictatorship, he yet found serious defects in some of the Articles, and want of precision on this point and that.
His criticisms of this kind were masterly examples of his breadth of thought, his foresight, and his practical sagacity, and made an immediate impression.

For, at this stage of the proceedings, the belief being that he would ultimately accept the Kingship, the House, whose sittings had been little more than nominal during the great Whitehall Conferences, applied itself vigorously, by deliberations in Committee and exchanges of papers with the Protector, to such amendments of the _Petition and Advice_ as he had indicated.

On April 30 sufficient intimation of such amendments was ready, and the former Committee of Ninety-nine were required to let his Highness know the same and ask him to appoint a time for his positive answer.
For another week, notwithstanding two appointments for the purpose, all was still in suspense.

During that week we are to suppose Cromwell either in perplexed solitary meditation, or shut up in those confidential meetings with a few of the most zealous promoters of the Kingship which Whitlocke describes.