Cromwell received intelligence, from his adherents within the house, of the efforts being made to hurry the measure for settling the new representation, and then to dissolve for re-election. Major Harrison talked against time; until Cromwell could arrive after breaking up the Whitehall meeting. Ingoldsby, as the second or third messenger, had shown to him the urgent need of action. Followed by Lambert and some half-dozen officers, the General took with him a party of soldiers, reached the house, and found himself not too soon. Surrounding the chamber, and guarding the doors, the troopers remained outside. Clad in plain black, unattended and resolute, Oliver entered, stood looking on his discomfitted foes, and then sat down, speaking to no one except “dusky tough St. John, whose abstruse fanaticisms, crabbed logics, and dark ambitions issue all, as was natural, in decided avarice” (Carlyle’s _Cromwell_, iii. 168, 1671 edit.). Vane must have felt the peril, but held on unflinchingly, imploring the house to dispense with everything that might delay the measure, such as engrossing. The Speaker had risen at last to put the question, before the General started up, uncovered, and began his address. Something of stately commendation for past work he gave them. Perhaps at first his words were uttered solely to obtain a momentary pause, the whilst he gathered up his strength, and measured all the chances, before he broke with them for ever. Soon the tone changed into that of anger and contempt. He heaped reproaches on them: Ludlow says: “He spoke with so much passion and discomposure of mind, as if he had been distracted.” “Your time is come!” he told them: “The Lord has done with you. He has chosen other instruments for the carrying on his work, that are more worthy.”
Vane, Marten, and Sir Peter Wentworth tried to interrupt him, but it was almost beyond their power. Wentworth could but irritate him by indignant censure. He crushed his hat on, sprang from his place, shouting that he would put an end to their prating, and, while he strode noisily along the room, railed at them to their face, not naming them, but with gestures giving point to his invectives. He told them to begone: “I say you are no Parliament! I’ll put an end to your sitting. Begone! Give way to honester men.” A stamp of his foot followed, as a signal; the door flies open, “five or six files of musqueteers” are seen with weapons ready. Resistance (so prompt, with less provocation, in 1642) is felt to be useless, and, except mere feminine scolding, none is attempted. Not one dares to struggle. Afraid of violence, their swords hang idly at their side. As they pass out in turn, they meet the scathing of Oliver’s rebuke. His control of himself is gone. Their crimes are not forgotten. He denounces Challoner as a drunkard, Wentworth for his adultery, Alderman Allen for his embezzlement of public military money, and Bulstrode Whitelock of injustice. Harry Marten is asked whether a whore-master is fit to sit and govern. Vane is unable to resist a feeble protest, availing nothing—“This is not honest: Yea! it is against morality and honesty.” In the absence of such crimes or flagrant sins of his companions, as his own frozen nature made him incapable of committing, there are remembered against him his interminable harangues, his hair-splitting, his self-sufficiency; and all that early deliberate treachery in ransacking his father’s papers, which he employed to cause the death of Strafford. To all posterity recorded, came the ejaculation of Cromwell: “Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane—the Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!” And, excepting a few dissentient voices, the said posterity echoes the words approvingly. The “bauble” mace had been borne off ignominiously, the documents were seized, including that of the unpassed measure, the room was cleared, the doors were locked, and all was over. The Long Parliament thus fell, unlamented.