26 and April 2; Guizot, I.103-104.] April 1659 was the third month of the Parliament.

About a hundred of the members hitherto in attendance had then withdrawn, and the attendances had sunk to between 150 and 270.

This was the more ominous because the struggle had now ceased to be one between the Protector's Government and the Opposition, and had become one between the Court Party and the Army or Wallingford-House Party for the farther use of Thurloe's victories.
The Republicans, foiled in their own measures, had entered into relations with the Wallingford-House magnates.

True, these were not, for the nonce, Republicans.

On the contrary, they were still one wing of the declared supporters of Richard's Protectorship, and their chiefs all but composed that Other House the rights of which Thurloe had vindicated so manfully against the Republicans, and which was now therefore a working part of the Legislature.