Chapter V: THE COMMONWEALTH (concluded) (2)

Cromwell opened the year 1656 amid a multitude of plots and discontents. The enemies of the Republic--Royalists, Anabaptists, Levellers--were all busy in one quarter or another. Cleveland, the poet, who had been taken prisoner nine years before by David Leslie, at Newcastle, and expected to be hanged for his tirades against the Scots, but had been dismissed by Leslie with the contemptuous words, "Let the poor knave go and sell his ballads," was now seized by Colonel Haynes for seditious writings at Norwich; but Cromwell also dismissed him with like indifference.

At the close of the year the Jews, who had been forbidden England, hopeful from the more liberal mercantile notions of Cromwell, petitioned to be allowed to reside in this country, under certain conditions. Cromwell was favourable to the petition, which was presented by Manasseh Ben Israel, a leading Portuguese Jew, of Amsterdam, though his Council was against it on Scriptural grounds; but Cromwell silently took them under his protection. There was also a Committee of Trade in the House, under the earnest advocacy of the Protector, for promoting commerce. Meanwhile, Cromwell vigorously prosecuted the war against Spain. Blake and Montague were ordered to the coast of Spain, to destroy the shipping in the harbour of Cadiz, and to see whether Gibraltar could not be seized, which Cromwell, in his letters to the admirals, pointed out as admirably adapted to promote and protect our trade, and keep the Spaniard in check. Yet even this project was not carried out without trouble from the Malcontents. Some of the captains of the fleet, tampered with by Charles's emissaries, declared their disapproval of the enterprise, contending that we, and not the Spaniards, were in fault. Cromwell sent down Desborough to them, who weeded them out, and put others in their places. Blake and Montague then set sail, and reached the neighbourhood of Cadiz and Gibraltar in April, but found their defences too strong; they then proceeded to Lisbon, and brought the treaty with the Portuguese to a termination, and afterwards made an alarming visit to Malaga, and to Sallee, to curb the Moors. In July they returned to the Tagus, and in September a part of the fleet, under Captain Stayner, fell in with and defeated a fleet of eight sail, coming from America. He destroyed four of the vessels, and captured two, containing treasure worth from two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to three hundred thousand pounds.

Before this treasure reached England, Cromwell, who had exhausted his finances to fit out the fleet and prosecute the war with Spain, was compelled to call a Parliament, not only to obtain supplies, but to take measures for the security of the nation against the designs of the Royalists and their coadjutors, the Levellers. This met on the 17th of September, 1656. But Cromwell did not allow all the members elected to sit in this Parliament, any more than in the former ones. He knew well that his Government and such a Parliament could not exist together. The members elected, therefore, were not admitted to sit except they had a certificate of their approval by the Council from the Chancery clerk. By the withholding of such certificates nearly one-fourth of the members were excluded. This created a terrible outcry of invasion of Parliamentary privileges. Haselrig, Scott, Ashley Cooper, and many other violent Republicans were excluded. The excluded members signed an indignant protest, and circulated it in all parts of the country, with the list of their names appended.

The Protector opened this purged Parliament with a very long speech, which was one of the most remarkable speeches ever addressed to Parliament by any ruler. It displayed a depth and breadth of policy, an active, earnest spirit of national business, a comprehension of and desire for the establishment of such principles and prosperous measures, a recognition of the rights of the whole world as affected by the conduct of this one great nation, which have no parallel for true Christian philosophy since the days of Alfred. We have since then had great and valiant warriors, our Edwards and Henrys, but not a man who combined with the highest military genius and success a genuine, lofty, and loving Christian sentiment, and an earnest business-like mind like Cromwell. He at once laid down the principle that all hostility to the Commonwealth originated in the hatred of its free and Christian character; and he showed that all these enemies, of whatever theories, had united themselves with Spain, which was the grand adversary of this country, and had been so from the Reformation, because she was bigotedly wedded to the system of Popery, with all its monks, Jesuits, and inquisitors. He recapitulated its attempts to destroy Elizabeth and her religion; the vain attempts of the Long Parliament to make peace with it, because in any treaty where the Pope could grant absolution, you were bound and they were loose; the murder of Ascham, the Long Parliament's ambassador, and no redress obtained: and now he informed them, and offered to produce the proofs, that Charles Stuart had put himself in league with Spain, and, still more strange, that the Levellers, pretending to demand a freer and more Republican Government, had entered into the unnatural alliance with Charles and Spain to murder him and destroy the Commonwealth.

All this was perfectly true. Sexby, the Leveller, had gone over to Charles, and thence to Spain, to solicit aid towards a Popish invasion, offering first to kill Cromwell himself. He obtained forty thousand crowns for the use of his party, and a promise of six thousand men when they were ready to land in England, who should wait in Flanders. Some of this money, when remitted to the accomplices in England, Cromwell intercepted, as he assured the Parliament. Sexby followed to accomplish his design of assassinating the Protector, as we shall find anon. Cromwell proceeded to remind Parliament of the insurrections excited by Charles's emissaries, Wagstaff and Rochester, and the conspiracy of Gerard and Vowel, the outbreaks at Salisbury, Rufford Abbey, and a score of other places; of Wildman taken in the act of penning his call to rebellion, of the design to destroy Monk in Scotland, and of similar instigations in the army in Ireland; of the plottings of the Lord Taaffe with Hyde at Antwerp; and, finally, that there had been an attempt to blow him up with gunpowder in his own house, and an officer of the Guard had been engaged to seize him in his bed. These last he characterised as "little fiddling attempts not worth naming," and which he regarded no more than he did "a mouse nibbling at his heel." But he told them that the animus altogether was of that un-English and un-Christian character, that it became them to fight manfully against it, and though they were low in funds, they should still put forth all their energies to crush this malignant power of Spain, whence the other enemies drew their strength. He informed them that France was well disposed to them, and that all the rest of the world was at peace with them.

He then assured them that the major-generals had done good service in every quarter, that the improvement of the ministry had become manifest through the exertions of the Commissioners, and that the Presbyterians had themselves expressed their approbation of what had been done in that respect. He strongly recommended to them further equalisation and improvement of the laws, so that every one should have cheap and easy justice, and that the purification of the public morals should be carefully attended to--"the Cavalier interest, the badge and character of continuing profaneness, disorder, and wickedness in all places," having worked such deplorable effects. "Nobility and gentry of this nation!" he exclaimed; "in my conscience it was a shame to be a Christian, within these fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen years in this nation; whether 'in Cæsar's house' or elsewhere! It was a shame, it was a reproach to a man, and the badge of 'Puritan' was put on it." As they would maintain nobility and gentry, he told them they must not suffer these classes "to be patronisers or countenancers of debauchery and disorders! And therefore," he concluded, "I pray and beseech you, in the name of Christ, show yourselves to be men; quit yourselves like men! It doth not infer any reproach if you do show yourselves men--_Christian_ men, which alone will make you quit yourselves."

In the early days of the sitting of this Parliament--that is, in the beginning of October--came the news of Stayner's victory over the Spanish Plate fleet, and the capture of the treasure; and in the beginning of November the money arrived, and thirty-eight waggon-loads of silver were sent up from Portsmouth to the Mint to be coined, amid universal rejoicings. Before the year closed, also, Cromwell, by the help of Mazarin, effected a temporary separation of interests between Charles Stuart and the Duke of York; but it did not last long. But by this time Colonel Sexby was in England, watching his opportunity to murder Cromwell. He was daring enough to introduce himself amongst the Protector's escort in Hyde Park, and he and his accomplices had filed nearly through the hinges of the gates through which the Protector was accustomed to pass, so that they might create a sudden obstruction and confusion, during which Sexby might shoot Cromwell. But not being able to succeed to his mind, Sexby returned to Flanders to consult with the royal party, and left sixteen hundred pounds in the hands of one Miles Sindercomb, a cashiered quartermaster, who was to carry out the bloody design. Sindercomb took a house in Hammersmith, where the road by which the Protector passed to and from Hampton Court was very narrow, and there he prepared an "infernal machine," consisting of a battery of seven blunderbusses, which was to blow Cromwell's coach to atoms as it passed; but the machine did not answer, or could not be used from the crowd of Guards; and then Sindercomb resolved to set fire to Whitehall by night, and kill Cromwell as he came out in the confusion. He had bribed a great number of accomplices, many of them in the palace itself, and had probably a considerable number of fellow conspirators, for he had a hundred swift horses in stables in the neighbourhood, on which he and his confederates might escape, the deed being done. All this was with the privity and approbation of Charles, Clarendon, and the rest of that Court, and shows the state of moral principle in it, and which, after the Restoration, broke over England like a pestilence. They were constantly dabbling in attempts at assassination, and in the Clarendon papers themselves we have Clarendon's own repeated avowals of his satisfaction in them. He styles these base assassins "brave fellows and honest gentlemen," and thinks it a pity that any agent of the Protectorate abroad should not have his throat cut.

But Sindercomb's wholesale bribery led to the detection of the plot. Amongst those tampered with was Henry Toope, a Life Guardsman, who revealed the scheme. On the 8th of January, 1657, Sindercomb attended public worship in the evening at Whitehall Chapel. Toope, Cecil--who had been engaged in the construction of the infernal machine--and Sindercomb were arrested, and having been seen about General Lambert's seat, it was examined, and there was found a basketful of the most inflammable materials--strong enough, it was said, to burn through stones--and a lighted slow-burning match, calculated to reach the combustibles about midnight. There were found also holes bored in the wainscot, to facilitate the communication of the fire, and of draughts to encourage it. Toope and Cecil gave all the information that they could, but Sindercomb was obstinately silent, and being found guilty by a jury of high treason, was condemned to die on Saturday, the 13th. But the evening before, his sister taking leave of him, contrived to carry some poison to him, and the next morning he was found dead in his bed.

Parliament adjourned a week for the trial and examination of the plot, and appointed a day of thanksgiving on Friday, the 23rd. But though Sindercomb was dead, Sexby was alive, and as murderously inclined as ever, and to prevent interrupting other affairs, we may now follow him also to his exit. Though neither fleet nor money was ready to follow up the blow if successful, the gloomy Anabaptist once more set out for England with a tract in his possession, called "Killing no Murder," which was no doubt his own composition, though Colonel Titus, after the Restoration, claimed the merit of it. This tract, taking it as a settled fact that it was a noble piece of patriotism and virtue to kill a tyrant, pronounced Cromwell a tyrant, and therefore declared that it was a noble deed to kill him. It eulogised Sindercomb as the Brutus or Cato of the time. Sexby, disguised like a countryman, and with a large beard, travelled about distributing this pamphlet, but he was tracked, discovered, and lodged in the Tower. There he either went mad or pretended it, made a voluntary confession, found to be intended only to mislead, and, falling ill, died in the following January.

One of the first things which this second Parliament of the Protectorate did was to abolish the authority of the major-generals. Cromwell had assured them that they were doing good service in suppressing disturbances, and he told them so again; but there were many complaints of their rigour, especially of levying heavy fines on the Royalists; and Parliament, on the 29th of January, voted their withdrawal. The next matter, which occupied them for above three months, was the case of James Naylor, the mad Quaker, whom they sentenced to a punishment that was simply diabolical in its inhumanity. Before this was settled, Parliament entered on a far more momentous question--no less than whether they should not make Cromwell king.

Those who take an unfavourable view of the character of Cromwell, who regard him as a base mixture of hypocrisy and ambition, accuse him of having planned and manœuvred for this object; but there appears no evidence of this, but rather that the continual uneasiness created by the Royalist and Anabaptist assassins led many seriously to consider the peculiar position of the nation, and the great dangers to which it was exposed. There was nothing between the nation and all its old confusions but the life of one clear-headed, and strong-hearted, and strong-handed man, a life which was environed with perils. They deemed these dangers would be diminished by altering the form of government, and returning to a House of Lords and a Monarchy--but not to the corrupt and murder-seeking Stuarts. Had they their honest and earnest Protector converted into a king, and the succession settled on his family, the nation would jealously guard his life, and the hopes of the exiled family be diminished by the prospect of a successor of his own blood, even if he fell.

On the 23rd of February, 1657, suddenly Sir Christopher Pack, late Lord Mayor of London, craved leave to read a paper, which turned out to be drawn up in the form of a Remonstrance from Parliament to the Protector on the state of the country, and proposing a new form of government, including a House of Lords and himself as king. No sooner did the officers of the army, who had just lost their pro-consular dignity, and the other Republicans hear the proposition, than they rose, seized Pack, and hurried him from his seat to the bar of the House as a traitor. But those who were friendly to the proposition rose also in his defence, and after much commotion, the paper was not only read but debated. From this moment this subject occupied the House, with little intermission, till the 9th of May, or between two and three months. The title of the paper was changed from "A humble Address and Remonstrance," to "The humble Petition and Advice of the Parliament of England, Scotland, and Ireland." Its clauses were debated and carried one by one by a majority of a hundred to forty-four, and on the last day of the debate, March 26th, the blank left for the word king was filled in by a majority of one hundred and twenty-three to sixty-two. On the 31st of March an address was carried to the Protector at Whitehall by the Speaker and the House, praying that his Highness would be pleased to adopt their resolutions, and take upon him the state and title of king.

Unquestionably, this was the greatest temptation which had ever been thrown in the way of Cromwell. To have made his way by his energy and talent from the simple condition of a gentleman-farmer to the Dictatorship of the nation, and now to have the crown and succession of these great kingdoms offered to him and his family by Parliament, was a matter which would not have been much opposed by an ordinary man. But Cromwell was not of a character lightly to accept even a crown. He showed clearly that he had a strong inclination to place himself and his posterity in that august position, but he knew too well that the honour had also its dangers and its black side. His acceptance would at once darken his fair fame by settling it in the conviction of three-fourths of the kingdom that he had only fought and put down the Stuarts to set up himself. There was, moreover, a formidable party opposed to kingship, and especially decided against it were his generals and the army. A deputation of a hundred of them had waited on him on the 27th, with an address on the subject, in which they assured him that such a thing would be "a scandal to the people, would prove more than hazardous to his person, and would pave the way for the return of Charles Stuart." Let the nation but become once more accustomed to the name of king, and it would recall the ancient race on the first opportunity.

Cromwell felt too well the truth of these representations, and therefore he required of the House time to reflect on their important offer, though he had watched carefully the progress of the debate. He desired that a committee might be appointed to confer with him on all the articles of the new Instrument of Government proposed to him. A committee of ninety-nine persons was accordingly appointed, amongst them Whitelock, Glynn, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Broghill, Nathaniel Fiennes, one of the Keepers of the Great Seal, etc. They had many meetings, but Cromwell, instead of giving his opinion upon the subject, desired to know their reasons for recommending this change. The chief reasons advanced were, the ancient habits of the nation; that the people were proud of the honour of their monarchs; that that form of government had prevailed from the most ancient period, and what no doubt weighed greatly with them was that, by the 9th of Edward IV. and the 3rd of Henry VII., it was enacted that all who took up arms for or obeyed the king _de facto_, were held guiltless; but not so they who served a protector _de facto_.

Cromwell admitted that this was a matter of precaution which demanded serious consideration, and that he regarded the proposal to him as "a very singular honour and favour," and would return such an answer as God should give him, or as he should arrive at through discussion with them; but that his conscience yet was not clear upon the subject, and they must examine the grounds for it further. Whitelock says the Protector often advised about this matter of the kingship, and other great businesses, with a select number of the committee--Lord Broghill, Mr. Pierpoint, brother of the Earl of Kingston, Thurloe, Whitelock, and Sir Charles Wolseley,--and would be shut up three or four hours together, and none else were admitted to him. He sometimes would be very cheerful with them, and, laying aside his greatness, would be exceedingly familiar; and, by way of diversion, would make verses and play at crambo with them, when every one had to try his fancy. He commonly called for tobacco, pipes, and a caudle, and would now and then take tobacco himself. Then he would fall again to his serious and great business of the kingship.

They were interrupted, however, in their colloquies, by a fresh outbreak of the Fifth-Monarchy men. These religionists, who admitted the idea of no king but Christ, were especially exasperated at this attempt to set up an earthly king, and determined to rise and prevent it. They fixed Thursday, the 9th of April, for the rising. They issued a proclamation called "A Standard set up," ordered Mile End as the place of rendezvous, and, headed by one Venner, a wine merchant, and other persons of the City, calculated on introducing the reign of the Millennium. They encouraged each other, says Thurloe, with the exhortation that though they were but worms, yet they should be made instrumental to thresh mountains. They spoke, he says, great words of the reign of the saints, and the beautiful kingdom of holies which they were to erect, and talked of taking away all taxes, excise, custom, and tithes. They had banners painted with the device of the lion of the tribe of Judah, and the motto, "Who shall raise him up?"

But the wide-awake Thurloe had watched all their motions. That morning at daybreak he marched a troop of horse down upon the meeting at Mile End, seized Venner and twenty other ringleaders, with chests of arms, many copies of the proclamation, and the famous war-flag of the lion-couchant of Judah. Major-General Harrison, Admiral Lawson, Colonel Rich, and others of the leaders of the Fifth-Monarchy men were also seized, and with these men shut up in the Tower, but no further punished. Venner ended his days for a similar attempt in the reign of Charles II.

The discussions of Cromwell and the committee were resumed, and, without coming to any conclusion, on Tuesday, the 21st of April, the Protector suddenly left the consideration of the kingship, and examined the other articles of the Instrument. The chief of these were, that men of all classes should be capable of electing and being elected to Parliament or to offices of State, excepting Papists and Royalists, styled Malignants, at least such Royalists as had been in arms against the Parliament since 1642, unless they had since given signal proof of repentance by bearing arms for the Parliament; all who had been concerned in the Irish rebellion since 1650, or in any plot in England or Wales since December, 1653; all in Scotland who had been in arms against the Parliament of England or Parliament of Scotland, except such as had lived peaceably since the 1st of March, 1652. Besides those thus excluded, all freeholders of counties, and all burgesses and citizens of towns--constituting in fact a household suffrage--could vote for members of Parliament.

All who were atheistical, blasphemous, married to Popish wives, or who trained children, or suffered their children to be trained in Popery, or consented that their children should marry Papists, who scoffed at religion or at religious people, who denied the Scriptures to be God's Word, who denied the Sacraments, ministers, or magistracy to be divine ordinances (like the Fifth-Monarchy men), who were Sabbath-breakers, swearers, haunters of taverns and alehouses--in short, all who were unchristian men--were excluded from electing or being elected. All public preachers were excluded, as better employed in their own vocation, but at the recommendation of Cromwell this was restricted to such preachers as had fixed livings, and did not affect mere voluntary occasional preachers, like himself and many other officers.

A second House of Parliament was to be organised, to consist of not less than forty members, nor more than seventy, who were to be nominated by the Protector, and approved by the Commons. It was not to be called the House of Lords, nor the Upper, but the Other House. The same qualifications and disqualifications applied to it as to the Commons. All judges and public officers, as well as those of the army and navy, were to be approved of by the two Houses; or if Parliament were not sitting, by the Council. Another article settled the revenue, and all relating to it and--the most important one to the Protector--he was authorised to name his successor before his death. These matters being settled, and the Instrument revised by Parliament, on the 8th of May Cromwell summoned the House to meet him in the Banqueting-house, Whitehall, where he ratified the rest of the Instrument, but gave them this answer as to the kingship--that having taken all the circumstances into consideration, both public and private, he did not feel at liberty in his conscience to accept the government with the title of king; that whatever was not of faith was sin; and that not being satisfied that he could accept it in that form to the real advantage of the nation, he should not be an honest man if he did not firmly--but with every acknowledgment of the infinite obligations they had laid him under--decline it. This was his answer to that great and weighty business.

Whitelock assures us that Cromwell at one time had been satisfied in his private judgment that he might accept the royal title, but that the formidable opposition of the officers of the army had shown him that it might lead to dangerous and deplorable results, and that therefore he believed it better to waive it. Whatever the motives, whether those of conscience or prudence, or both, inciting the Protector, he surmounted his temptation, and decided with the firmness characteristic of him. Major-Generals Whalley, Goffe, and Berry are said to have been for his acceptance of the crown; Desborough and Fleetwood were strenuous against it, but Lambert, temporising, appearing to approve whilst he was secretly opposing, and at length coming out strong against it, was the only one whom Cromwell visited with his displeasure. He dismissed him, but with a pension of two thousand pounds a year, and Lambert retired to Wimbledon, where it had been happy for him had he remained in quiet.

On the 26th of June, 1657, the grand ceremony of the inauguration of the Protector as the head of this new Government took place in Westminster Hall. The Protector went thither from Whitehall by water, and entered the hall in the following manner:--First went his gentlemen, then a herald, next the aldermen, another herald, then Norroy, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and the Great Seal carried by Commissioner Fiennes, then Garter, and after him the Earl of Warwick, with the sword borne before the Protector, bareheaded, the Lord Mayor carrying the City sword at his left hand. Being seated in his chair, on the left hand of it stood the Lord Mayor and the Dutch ambassador; on the right the French ambassador and the Earl of Warwick; next behind him stood his son Richard and his sons-in-law Claypole and Fleetwood, and the Privy Council. Upon a lower platform stood the Lord Viscount Lisle, Lord Montague, and Whitelock, with drawn swords. As the Protector stood under the cloth of State, the Speaker presented him with a robe of purple velvet, lined with ermine, which the Speaker and Whitelock put upon him. Then the Speaker presented him with a Bible richly gilt and bossed, girt the sword about his Highness, and delivered into his hand the sceptre of massy gold. Having done this, he made the Protector an address, and finally administered the oath. Then Mr. Manton, one of the chaplains, in prayer recommended his Highness, the Parliament, the Council, the forces by land and sea, and the whole Government and the people of the three nations to the blessing and protection of God. On that the trumpets sounded, the heralds proclaimed his Highness Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and again the trumpets sounded, and the people shouted, "God save the Protector!" This closed the ceremony, and the Protector and his train returned to Whitehall as they came.

The ceremony, it is clear, fell little short of a royal ceremony, with the exception of the crown and the anointing. Charles Stuart might have used the words of James of Scotland to Johnny Armstrong--"What lacks this knave that a king should have?" With the exception of the name of king, Cromwell, the farmer, was become the monarch of Great Britain and Ireland. He had all the power, and inhabited the palaces of kings. He had the right to place his son in the supreme seat after him; and one whole House of Parliament was of his own creation, while the other was purged to his express satisfaction.

Cromwell had not enjoyed his new dignity more than about six weeks, when he received the news of the death of his great Admiral Blake. His health had been for some time decaying. Scurvy and dropsy were fast destroying him, yet to the last he kept his command at sea, and finished his career with one of the most brilliant victories which had ever been achieved. During the winter and spring he maintained the blockade of Cadiz, but learning that the Plate fleet had taken refuge in the harbour of Santa Cruz, in the Island of Teneriffe, he made sail thither. He found the fleet drawn up under the guns of seven batteries in the harbour, which was shaped like a horseshoe. The merchantmen, ten in number, were ranged close inshore, and the galleons, in number and of greater force than any of his own ships, placed in front of them. It was a sight--seven forts, a castle, and sixteen ships--to have daunted any man but Blake. Don Diego Darques, the Spanish admiral, was so confident of the impregnable nature of his position, that he sent Blake word to come and take his vessels. "But," says Clarendon, "the illustrious genius of Blake was admired even by the hostile faction of his countrymen. He was the first man that declined the old track, and made it manifest that the science might be obtained in less time than was imagined; and despised those rules which had been long in practice, to keep his ship and men out of danger, which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal art requisite in the captain of a ship had been to be sure to come safe home again; the first man who brought the ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable; the first that infused that portion of courage into the seamen, by making them see what mighty things they could do if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water."

Blake did not hesitate. The wind was blowing into the harbour on the 20th of April, 1657; and trusting to the omnipotent instincts of courage, he dashed into the harbour at eight o'clock in the morning. Stayner, who had so lately defeated the Spanish Plate fleet, and destroyed in it the viceroy of Peru, now led the way in a frigate, and Blake followed with the larger ships. His fleet altogether amounted to twenty-five sail. It was received with a hurricane of fire from the batteries on both sides the harbour and the fleet in front; but discharging his artillery right and left, he advanced, silencing the forts, and soon driving the seamen from the front line of galleons into the merchant ships. For four hours the terrible encounter continued, the British exposed to a deadly hail of ball from the shore as well as the ships, but still pressing on till the Spanish ships were all in flames, and reduced to ashes, the troops in them having escaped to land. The question, then, was how to escape out of the harbour, and from the fury of the exasperated Spaniards on the land around. But Blake drew his ships out of reach of the forts and, as if Providence had wrought in his favour--as Blake firmly believed He did--the wind about sunset veered suddenly round, and the fleet sailed securely out to sea.

The fame of this unparalleled exploit rang throughout Europe, and raised the reputation of England for naval prowess to the greatest pitch. Unhappily, death was fast claiming the undaunted admiral. He was suffering at the moment that he won this brilliant triumph, and, sailing homewards, he expired (August 17, 1657) on board his ship, the _St. George_, just as it entered the harbour of Plymouth. Besides the high encomium of Clarendon, he received that of a writer of his own party and time, in the narrative of the "Perfect Politician"--"He was a man most wholly devoted to his country's service, resolute in his undertakings, and most faithful in his performances of them. With him valour seldom missed its reward, nor cowardice its punishment. When news was brought him of a metamorphosis in the State at home, he would then encourage the seamen to be most vigilant abroad; for, said he, it was not our duty to mind State affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us. In all his expeditions the wind seldom deceived him, but mostly in the end stood his friend, especially in his last undertaking in the Canary Islands. To the last he lived a single life, never being espoused to any but his country's quarrels. As he lived bravely, he died gloriously, and was buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel, yet enjoying at this time no other monument but what is raised by his valour, which time itself can hardly deface."

During this summer, Oliver had not only been gloriously engaged at sea, but he had been busy on land. He was in league with Louis XIV. of France to drive the Spaniards from the Netherlands. The French forces were conducted by the celebrated Marshal Turenne, and the Spanish by Don John of Austria, and the French insurgent chief, the Prince of Condé. Cromwell sent over six thousand men under Sir John Reynolds, who landed near Boulogne on the 13th and 14th of May. They were supported by a strong fleet under Admiral Montague, the late colleague of Blake, which cruised on the coast. The first united operations were to be the reduction of Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk, the first of which places, when taken, was to belong to France, the two latter to England. If Gravelines were taken first, it was to be put into possession of England, as a pledge for the conveyance of the two latter. This bold demand on the part of Cromwell astonished his French allies, and was violently opposed by the French cabinets, who told Louis that Dunkirk once in the hands of the English, would prove another Calais to France. But without Dunkirk, which Cromwell deemed necessary as a check to the Royalist invasions from the Netherlands, with which he was continually threatened, no aid was to be had from the Protector, and it was conceded, whence came the angry declaration from the French, that "Mazarin feared Cromwell more than the Devil."

The French Court endeavoured to employ the English forces on other work than the reduction of these stipulated places. The young French king went down to the coast to see the British army, and having expressed much admiration of them recommended them to lay siege to Montmédy, Cambray, and other towns in the interior. Cromwell was, however, too much of a man of business and a general to suffer this. He ordered his ambassador, Sir William Lockhart (who had married the Protector's niece, Miss Rosina Sewster) to remonstrate, and insist on the attack of Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk. He told the ambassador that to talk of Cambray and interior towns as guarantees was "parcels of words for children. If they will give us garrisons, let them give us Calais, Dieppe, and Boulogne." He bade him tell the Cardinal that if he meant any good from the treaty with him, he must keep it, and go to work on Dunkirk, when, if necessary, he would send over two thousand more of his veterans. This had the necessary effect: Mardyke was taken after a siege of three days only, and put into the hands of the English on the 23rd of September. The attack was then turned on Gravelines; but the enemy opened their sluices, and laid all the country round under water. On this Turenne, probably glad of the delay, put his troops at that early period into winter quarters. During this time attempts were made to corrupt the English officers by the Stuart party. The Duke of York was in the Spanish army with the English Royalist exiles, and communications were opened as of mere civility with the English at Mardyke. As the English officers took their rides between Mardyke and Dunkirk they were frequently met by the duke's officers, and conversation took place. Sir John Reynolds was imprudent enough to pay his respects to the duke on these occasions, and he was soon ordered to London to answer for his conduct; but both he and a Colonel White, who was evidence against him, were lost on the 5th of December on the Goodwin Sands. The Duke of York now made a treacherous attack on Mardyke, but was repulsed, and the affairs of Charles II. appeared so hopeless, that Burnet asserts, and the same thing is asserted also in the "Orrery Letters," that he was now mean enough to offer to marry one of Cromwell's daughters, and thus settle all differences, but that Cromwell told Lord Orrery that Charles was so debauched that he would undo them all. Cromwell, indeed, just now married his two remaining single daughters, Frances and Mary, to the Lords Rich and Falconberg. Frances married Lord Rich, the son of the Earl of Warwick, and Mary Lord Falconberg, of the Yorkshire family of Bellasis, formerly so zealous for the royal party.

CROMWELL REFUSING THE CROWN, 1657.

FROM THE PICTURE BY J. SCHEX IN THE WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL.]

The year 1658 opened by the meeting of the new Parliament. It was a critical venture, and not destined to succeed better than the former ones. To constitute the new House, called the Other House, Cromwell had been obliged to remove to it most of the best-affected members of the Commons. To comply with the "Petition and Advice," he had been forced to admit into the Commons many who had been expelled from former Parliaments for their violent Republicanism. The consequences at once appeared. The Other House consisted of sixty-three members. It included six of the ancient Peers--the Earls of Manchester, Warwick, Mulgrave, Falconberg, Saye and Sele, and Lord Eure. But none but Eure and Falconberg took their seats, not even the Earl of Warwick, whose son and heir, Lord Rich, had just married the Protector's daughter. He and the others objected to sit in the same House with General Hewson, who had once been a shoemaker, and Pride, who had been a drayman. Amongst the members appeared a considerable number of the officers of the army, and the chief Ministers of State. These included the Protector's two sons, Richard and Henry Cromwell, Fiennes, Keeper of the Great Seal, Lisle, Fleetwood, Monk, Whalley, Whitelock, Barkstead, Pride, Hewson, Goffe, Sir Christopher Pack, alderman of London, General Claypole, St. John, and other old friends of the Protector, besides the lords already mentioned. As they had been called by writs, which were copies of the royal writs used on such occasions, the members immediately assumed that it made them peers, and gave them a title to hereditary rank. They were addressed by Cromwell in his opening speech as "My Lords, and Gentlemen of the House of Commons." His speech was very short, for he complained of indisposition, the truth being, that the life of excitement, struggle, and incessant care for twenty years had undermined his iron frame, and he was breaking down; but he congratulated them on the internal peace attained, warned them of danger from without, and exhorted them to unity and earnestness for the public good. Fiennes, after the Protector's retirement, addressed them in a much longer speech on the condition of the nation.

But all hopes of this nondescript Parliament were vain. The Other House no sooner met apart than they began inquiring into their privileges, and, assuming that they were not merely the Other House, but the Upper House, sent a message, after the fashion of the ancient peers by the judges, to desire a conference with the Commons on the subject of a fast. The Commons, however, who were by the new Instrument made judges of the Other House, being authorised to approve or disapprove of it, showed that they meant the Other House to be not an Upper House, but a lower House than themselves. They claimed to be the representatives of the people; but who, they asked, had made the Other House a House of Peers, who had given them an authority and a negative voice over _them?_ The first thing which the Commons did was to claim the powers of the new Instrument, and admit the most violent of the excluded members, for none were to be shut out except rebels or Papists. Haselrig, who had been appointed one of the Other House, refused to sit in it; but having been elected to the Commons, he appeared there, and demanded his oath. Francis Bacon, the Clerk of the House, replied that he dared not give it him; but Haselrig insisted, and being supported by his party, he at length obtained his oath, and took his seat. It was then soon seen that the efficient Government members were gone to the Other House, and Haselrig, Scott, Robinson, and the most fiery members of the Republican section now carried things their own way, and commenced a course of vehement opposition. Scott ripped up the whole history of the House of Lords during the struggle of the Commonwealth. He said--"The Lords would not join in the trial of the king. We called the king to our bar, and arraigned him. He was for his obstinacy and guilt condemned and executed, and so let all the enemies of God perish! The House of Commons had a good conscience in it. Upon this the Lords' House adjourned, and never met again; and it was hoped the people of England should never again have a negative upon them." But the hostility of this party was not to the Other House merely, it was to the Protectorate itself, which it declaimed against, and not only in the House, but out of it, setting on foot petitions for the abolition of the Protectorate by the Commons. Whitelock remarks that this course boded the speedy dissolution of the House. Cromwell summoned both Houses to Whitehall January 25th, only five days after their meeting, and in a long and powerful speech remonstrated with the Commons on their frantic proceedings. He took a wide view of the condition of Europe, of the peace and Protestantism of England, and asked them what were their hopes, if, by their decision, they brought back the dissolute and bigoted Court which they had dismissed. He declared that the man who could contemplate the restoration of such a state of things must have the heart of a Cain; that he would make England the scene of a bloodier civil war than they had had before. He prayed, therefore, that whoever should seek to break the peace, God Almighty might root that man out of the nation; and he believed that the wrath of God would prosecute such a man to his grave, if not to hell.

But all argument was lost on that fiery section. Scott and Haselrig continued their assaults on the whole frame of government more strenuously than ever; and on the 4th of February, fifteen days from the meeting of Parliament, amid the confused bickering of Scott and Haselrig with the wearied House, arrived the Usher of the Black Rod to summon the members to the Other House, which he called boldly the House of Lords. Haselrig, in the midst of his harangue, was reminded of the presence of the Black Rod. "What care I for Black Rod?" he exclaimed, but he was compelled to obey.

The Protector expressed the intensity of his disappointment that the very men who had importuned him to assume the burden of Government, and even the title of king, should now, instead of attending to the urgent business of the nation, endeavour violently to destroy that Government, and throw everything into chaos. "I can say in the presence of God," he continued, "in comparison with Whom we are but like poor creeping ants upon the earth, I would have been glad to have lived under a wood-side, to have kept a flock of sheep rather than have undertaken such a Government as this. But undertaking it by the advice and petition of you, I did look that you, who had offered it unto me, should make it good." He added, "And if this be the end of your sitting, and this be your carriage, I think it high time to put an end to your sitting; and I do dissolve this Parliament." And thus closed the last Parliament of Cromwell, after a session of a fortnight.

Having dismissed his Parliament, Cromwell had to take summary measures with the host of conspirators whom his refractory Parliaments had only tended to encourage. Since the "Killing no Murder" of Sexby, there were numbers who were by no means careful to conceal that they loved these doctrines, and persuaded the discontented that to kill Cromwell was to cure all the evils of the nation. The Royalists, on their part, who had always been advocates and practisers of assassination, were more than ever on the alert. In the beginning of the year 1658 the plan of an invasion was completed. The King of Spain furnished one hundred and fifty thousand crowns towards fitting it out: arms, ammunition, and transports were purchased in Holland, and the port of Ostend was to be the place of embarkation. The greatest drawback to the hopes of the Royalists were the dissipated and debauched habits of the king. Ormond, writing to Hyde, observed that he feared Charles's immoderate delight in empty, effeminate, and vulgar conversation was become an irresistible part of his nature, and would never suffer him to animate his own designs and the actions of others with that spirit which was necessary for his quality, and much more for his fortunes. Yet this was the man on whom their hopes of the restoration of monarchy were built. Ormond and O'Neil ventured to England in disguise, in order to ascertain what were really the resources and the spirit of the Royalists in the country. Ormond had private communication with all parties--with the Earls of Manchester and Denbigh, with Rossiter and Sir William Waller, as Presbyterians opposed to Cromwell and the Independents; with Saye and Sele and others, who were willing that Charles should return on his signing the same articles that his father had offered in the Isle of Wight; and with such of the fanatic Levellers as held the opinions of Sexby. But he found little that was encouraging amongst any of them. If we are to believe Clarendon, he was betrayed by one of those in whom he most trusted, Sir Richard Willis, who was high in the confidence of Charles, but was at the same time a paid spy of Cromwell's. It is certain that one day in March the Protector said to Lord Broghill, "An old friend of yours is in town, the Duke of Ormond, now lodged in Drury Lane, at the Papist surgeon's there. You had better tell him to be gone." Broghill found that this was the case, and gave Ormond the necessary hint, who hurried back to Bruges, and assured Charles and his Court that Cromwell had many enemies, but there was at present no chance of a successful invasion.

But if Cromwell was disposed to allow Ormond to escape, he was compelled to make an example of some other of the Royalist agitators. On the 12th of March the Protector sent for the Lord Mayor and aldermen to Whitehall, informed them that the Duke of Ormond had been lurking in the City to excite rebellion, and that it was necessary to take strict measures for putting down the seditious of all sorts. At the same time he ordered the fleet to sweep the coasts of the Netherlands, which drove in there two fleets intended for the Royalist expedition, and blockaded Ostend. He then determined to bring to justice some of the most incorrigible agitators. Sir Henry Slingsby, who had been confined in Hull ever since the outbreak of Penruddock, had not even there ceased his active resistance, employing himself to corrupt the officers of the garrison, who, being instructed by the governor, appeared to listen to his views, so that ere long he was emboldened to offer them commissions from Charles Stuart. Another person arrested was Dr. Hewit, an Episcopalian clergyman, who preached at St. Gregory's, near St. Paul's, and was a most indefatigable advocate of a royal invasion. There were numbers of the Royalist apprentices and others in the City, who were not patient enough to wait for the invasion; they resolved to rise on the 15th of May, fire the houses near the Tower, and by sound of drum proclaim the king. The Protector told Thurloe that "it was not fit that there should be a plot of this kind every winter," and Thurloe had made himself thoroughly aware of all their proceedings. As the time approached, the ringleaders were seized at the "Mermaid," in Cheapside. A High Court of Justice was appointed according to Act of Parliament, and Slingsby, Hewit, and the City incendiaries were tried. There was ample proof of their guilt. Hewit denied the authority of the court and refused to plead, but he was all the same condemned with Slingsby and six of the City traitors to death.

In the Netherlands Sir William Lockhart admirably supplied the place of Sir John Reynolds, acting both as ambassador and general. The Allied army opened the campaign of 1658 with the siege of Dunkirk. The Prince of Condé had in vain assured the Spaniards that this would be the case, whilst they imagined that the intention of the Allies was to besiege Cambray. When Don John saw his mistake, he determined to attack the Allies and raise the siege. But Turenne and Lockhart would not wait to be attacked; they marched to meet the Spaniards, and surprised them before they had received their supply of ammunition for the intended assault. Don John hastily drew up his forces along a ridge of sandhills, and gave the command of the right wing to the Duke of York, and the left to Condé, himself commanding the centre. Lockhart was too ill to take the command, but gave it to Colonel Morgan, who, with his English forces, found himself opposed to the Duke of York. The English dashed up the sandhill, and soon drove the infantry of the enemy before them. They were then charged by the Duke of York at the head of the Spanish cavalry, and the battle was terrible, but nearly half of the duke's men fell under the well-directed fire of his countrymen. The left wing, however, under Condé, had given way, and the duke, leaving his rallied infantry to contend with the English in front, directed the charge of his cavalry against their flank. It was in vain; the centre gave way without fighting, and the brave English defending themselves against their numerous assailants till relieved by a body of French horse, the whole line of the Spaniards collapsed. The Duke of York, who had fought gallantly, was saved in the first charge only by the temper of his armour, and in the second he was surrounded by the enemy, and, according to his own account, only extricated himself by assuming the character of a French officer, and leading on several troopers to the charge till he saw a chance of riding off. Marshal Turenne gave the credit of the victory to the gallantry of the English, who had, at the close of the battle, scarcely a single officer left alive. At Whitehall the victory was attributed to the prayers of the saints at Court, for it happened that the Protector had set apart that day for a solemn fast, and, says Thurloe, "whilst we were praying, they were fighting, and the Lord gave a signal answer."

The Lord Falconberg was despatched to carry congratulations to Louis XIV., who was at Calais, and soon afterwards these were returned by the Duke of Crequi and M. Mancini, the nephew of Mazarin, who expressed his regret that, owing to the urgency of affairs, he was unable to come himself, as he said he had long desired; but he sent a magnificent sword from the king, and a fine piece of tapestry from himself. Dunkirk was given up to the English, Gravelines was taken, Ypres surrendered, and all the towns on the banks of the Lys fell into the hands of the conquerors.