The secluded members attempted, but in vain, to resume their seats among them.
The numbers of this parliament were small, little exceeding seventy members: the authority in the nation, ever since they had been purged by the army, was extremely diminished; and, after their expulsion, had been totally annihilated; but being all of them men of violent ambition, some of them men of experience and capacity, they were resolved, since they enjoyed the title of the supreme authority, and observed that some appearance of a parliament was requisite for the purposes of the army, not to act a subordinate part to those who acknowledged themselves their servants.

They chose a council, in which they took care that the officers of Wallingford House should not be the majority: they appointed Fleetwood lieutenant-general, but inserted in his commission, that it should only continue during the pleasure of the house: they chose seven persons, who should nominate to such commands as became vacant; and they voted, that all commissions should be received from the speaker, and be signed by him in the name of the house.

These precautions, the tendency of which was visible, gave great disgust to the general officers; and their discontent would immediately have broken out into some resolution fatal to the parliament, had it not been checked by the apprehensions of danger from the common enemy.
The bulk of the nation consisted of royalists and Presbyterians; and to both these parties the dominion of the pretended parliament had ever been to the last degree odious.

When that assembly was expelled by Cromwell, contempt had succeeded to hatred; and no reserve had been used in expressing the utmost derision against the impotent ambition of these usurpers.

Seeing them reinstated in authority, all orders of men felt the highest indignation; together with apprehensions, lest such tyrannical rulers should exert their power by taking vengeance upon their enemies, who had so openly insulted them.