The death of Cromwell in September 1658 and resignation of his son Richard in May 1659 paralysed the Commonwealth government and ended with The Restoration. In April 1660, Holles was elected for Dorchester to the Convention Parliament and formed part of the delegation sent to The Hague to formally invite Charles to return. One suggestion is this was partly to get him out of the way, due to disagreements within the Convention over the terms; Parliamentarian moderates like Holles wanted to restore the monarchy based on the 1648 Treaty of Newport, while Royalists demanded a return to the 1630s. In the end, most of the 1641 reforms were preserved, but bishops were restored to the Lords and the Church of England.