On the 27th day
of June in the previous year, he had, in the Presence of the
Judges of the land, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City, and
Members of Parliament assembled at Westminster Hall, seated
himself on the coronation chair of the Stuarts, assumed the title
of Lord Protector, donned a robe of violet velvet, girt his loins
with a sword of state, and grasped the sceptre, symbolic of
kingly power. From that hour distrust beset his days, his nights
were fraught with fear. All his keen and subtle foresight, his
strong and restless energies, had since then been exerted in
suppressing plots against his power, and detecting schemes
against his life, concocted by the Republicans whose liberty he
had betrayed, and by the Royalists whose king he had beheaded.
Soon after he had assumed the title of Lord High Protector, a
most daring pamphlet, openly advocating his assassination, was
circulated in vast numbers throughout the kingdom. It was
entitled "Killing no Murder," and was dedicated in language
outrageously bold to His Highness Oliver Cromwell. "To your
Highness justly belongs the honour of dying for the people," it
stated, "and it cannot but be an unspeakable consolation to you,
in the last moments of your life, to consider with how much
benefit to the world you are likely to leave it. It is then
only, my lord, the titles you now usurp will be truly yours; you
will then be, indeed, the deliverer of your country, and free it
from a bondage little inferior to that from which Moses delivered
his, you will then be that true reformer which you would now be
thought; religion shall then be restored, liberty asserted, and
Parliaments have those privileges they have sought for.
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