66

About six weeks after Cromwell's inaugura- | ble of meaner things, offered to espouse one of tion he was afflicted by receiving the news of the Cromwell's daughters; but the lord - protector death of the brave Blake; who, with wonderful told Orrery, who recommended the match, that success, had asserted in all seas the supremacy Charles was so damnably debauched, he would of the British flag—who had done the most emi- undo them all.3 nent service to parliament, to commonwealth, to On the 20th of January the parA.D. 1658. the protector-who had been the "first man that liament met according to their addeclined the old track, and made it manifest that journment, and received into the house their the science might be attained in less time than fellow-members who had been prevented from was imagined, and despised those rules which taking their seats in the preceding session; this had long been in practice to keep his ship and being done upon the fourth article of the “Petimen out of danger, which had been held, in for- tion and Advice," by which it was provided that mer times, a point of great ability and circum- no member legally chosen should be excluded spection, as if the principal art requisite in the from performance of his duty, but by consent of captain of a ship had been to be sure to come parliament. In the interval of the parliament's safe home again—the first man who brought the sitting, the protector had provided his peers who ships to contemn castles on shore, which had were to make up the other house, and these quasibeen thought ever very formidable-the first that lords had been summoned by the same form of infused that proportion of courage into the sea- writs which had formerly been used for calling men, by making them see what mighty things the peers to parliament. They were in all sixty, they could do if they were resolved, and taught and among them were several noblemen, knights, them to fight in fire as well as upon water." and gentlemen of ancient family and good estates, "The last part he ever acted in a sea of blood," the rest being for the most part colonels and says a quaint but spirited and correct narrator, officers of the army. Foremost on the list appear was against the Spaniards at Santa Cruz: here, the names of the Lord Richard Cromwell, the with twenty-five sail, he fought (as it were in a protector's eldest son, the Lord Henry Cromwell, ring) with seven forts, a castle, and sixteen ships, his other son, Lord-deputy of Ireland, Nathaniel many of them being of greater force than most Fiennes, Fleetwood, the Earl of Warwick, the of those ships Blake carried in against them: yet, Earl of Mulgrave, the Earl of Manchester, Lord in spite of opposition, he soon calcined the enemy Eure, Viscounts Say and Lisle, Lord John Clayand brought his fleet back again to the coast of pole, Charles, Viscount Howard, Lord WharSpain full fraught with honour.” But his con- ton, Lord Falconbridge, General Monk, commanstitution was now worn out by long services and der-in-chief of his highness's forces in Scotland, by the sea-scurvy; and he "who would never and Lord Edward Montague; and Whitelock, strike to any other enemy, struck his top-mast to Hazlerig, Whalley, Barkstead, Pride, Goff, Sir death" as he was entering Plymouth Sound. Christopher Pack, the ex-lord-mayor of London, St. John, and other old friends of the protector, were among the remainder.' If Cromwell had been ever so much disposed to call upon the old peers, and if that aristocracy had been ever so well inclined to obey the summons, such a measure was rendered impracticable by the last constitutional instrument, the "Petition and Advice" expressly stipulating that the members of "the other house" should be subject to the same excluding clauses as the members of the House of Commons; and with this additional bar, that all the members of that other house, though nominated by his highness, must be approved by the commons. But nearly every possible circumstance set strongly against the revival of the end stood his friend; especially in his last undertaking at the Canary Islands. To his last he lived a single life, never bei espoused to any but his country's quarrels. As he lived bravely. he died gloriously, and was buried in Henry VII's Chapel: Fr enjoying at this time no other monument but what is reared by his valour, which time itself can hardly deface." Whitelock tells us that Blake's funeral was performed with great solemnity, and that at the time of it new plots were discovered. 3 Burnet; Orrery's Letters.

"2

The protector, drawing more closely to France, according to a private agreement, had prepared troops to join the French army under Turenne; and 6000 foot were sent over to Boulogne under the command of Sir John Reynolds and Colonel Morgan. These red-coats marched with Turenne into Spanish Flanders, and took Mardick. | In the course of the following winter, while the English were in quarters, the Duke of York, the late king's second son, took the field suddenly with a strong body of Spaniards, and endeavoured to drive the English out of Mardick; but he was repulsed with great loss. Abandoned and cast out by the French, and hoping little from the Spaniards, Charles II., who was quite capa

1 Clarendon.

2 Perfect Politician. The writer of this rich little volume adds, "He was a man wholly devoted to his country's service, resolute in his undertakings, and most faithful in the performance 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) 'tis not our duty to mind state affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us. In all his expeditions the wind seldom deceived him, but most an

+ Thurloe, State Papers; Whitelock.

and essential part of that constitution. The attack was led by Hazlerig, who, though nominated to "the other house," persisted in retaining his place in the commons; by Scot, a most resolute republican; and by others who detested any approach to the old aristocratic House of Lords. On the fourth day of the session a message "from the lords," delivered by two of the judges, who all attended as formerly in the upper house, desired the concurrence of the commons in an address to the protector for a day of humiliation and fast. The commons vehemently protested against the title assumed in the message, and would admit of no other than that of "the other house." On the morrow, the 25th of January, upon a letter from the protector to the speaker of the House of Commons, they met his highness in the Banqueting House, and there he exhorted them to unity, and to the observance of their own laws and rules in the "Petition and Advice." Whitelock adds that he gave them a statement of the public accounts and much good advice. But all this was of no avail; the majority in the commons persevered in their attack, and presently broached the doctrine that the new house was, and must be a mere dependency of the commons-a thing invested with certain functions of legislature and with nothing more-that it could never be a co-ordinate power with the commons. Scot raked up the whole history of the peers since the commencement of the Civil war; and then coming to the grand crisis, he said, "The lords would not join in the trial of the king. We must lay things bare and naked. We were either to lay all that blood of ten years' war upon our

ancient upper house; the vast majority of the peers had been devoted to the late king, and even the feeble minority of their number that remained at London with the parliament had refused taking any part in the king's trial; with the exception of a few united to him by old ties of friendship, or by their marrying into his family, there was not a single old peer that would trust Cromwell, or that he could trust. Not yet accustomed to this kind of recent creations, they disdained to sit in a house with men who had made their fortune with their sword or by their genius in war or law. Even the Earl of Warwick, who had gone along with the Commonwealth men in most things, and whose grandson and presumed heir had married one of the protector's daughters, declared that he could not sit in the same assembly with Colonel Hewson, who had been a shoemaker, and Colonel Pride, who had been a drayman. And Manchester, Say, and the other members of the old House of Lords who had been named, contemptuously kept aloof, not one of them, it should appear, taking his seat except Lord Eure. The rest of the members of the other house took their seats as the old lords used to do formerly, and the protector went thither to open the session according to the ancient and royal form. And the speaker, with the House of Commons, being sent for by the black rod, came to the lords' house, where the protector made a solemn speech to them, "but was short, by reason of his indisposition of health." Indeed, at the opening of this stormy session, wherein he was to be assaulted on all sides by his old Presbyterian enemies and by his old friends the Independents, who had become his worst ene-selves or upon some other object. We called the mies, his iron constitution was giving way under the effect of labour, anxiety, and grief: his daughter, the Lady Claypole, the darling of his heart, was visibly declining, and in no human heart were the domestic affections ever stronger than in that of this wonderful man. When he had done, the Lord commissioner Fiennes harangued "my lords and gentlemen of both the most honourable Houses of Parliament," quoting Scripture most copiously, yet not more copiously than was sanctioned by the then general custom. From hearing this long discourse, the commons returned to their own house with irritated and hostile feelings; and there it was quickly seen that the protector, by removing so many of his friends to "the other house," had left himself in a deplorable minority in this; and also that those members who had taken their seats by virtue of, and in acknowledgment of the "Petition and Advice," were determined to destroy that last instrument of government, and to aim their first blows at the new house, which was an integral

VOL. II.

Whitelock.

King of England 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, and hereby came a farewell of all those peers." Nor did Scot and his associates limit their attack to the other house or to mere declamation and oratory; they assaulted the protectorate itself, and a petition was circulated in the city by them and by some officers of the army for the purpose of abolishing Cromwell's all but kingly office. "All these passages," says Whitelock, "tended to their own destruction, which it was not difficult to foresee." Accordingly, on the 4th of February, the protector, without any intimation of his purpose, went down to the House of Lords early in the morning, summoned the commons before him, and ended a short, complaining speech with saying:

"I do dissolve this parliament, and let God judge between me and you." And thus ended

2 Burton.
181-2

Cromwell's last parliament, which had sat only | redound much to thy glory. All the stir is about fourteen days.

this.

Others would fain have me die. Lord, pardon them, and pardon thy foolish people; forgive them their sins, and do not forsake them; but love and bless them, and give them rest, and bring them to a consistency, and give me rest.

The protector was never in so much danger as at this moment; the republicans and their friends "were ready both with arms and men to fall in with swords in their hands;" the army was murmuring for want of pay; the royalists were spirited... I am a conqueror, and more than a conqueror, and combined by means of the Marquis of Or- through Jesus Christ, who strengtheneth me.' mond, who, during the sitting of parliament, had In the course of that night he declared, in the passed several days in disguise and concealment presence of four or five of the council, that "my in the city of London; the Levellers and Fifth Lord Richard" should be his successor. On the Monarchy Men were pledging their desperate following morning he was speechless, and he services to those who could dupe them; Crom- expired between three and four o'clock in the well's old friend Harrison, who had been released afternoon of the 3d of September, the day which from the Tower after a short confinement, "was he accounted his happiest day, the anniversary deep in the plot;" Colonel Silas Titus, a Pres- of his great victories of Worcester and Dunbar. byterian royalist, or Colonel Sexby, or whoever He was in the sixtieth year of his age. was the author of the famed tract entitled Killing no Murder, had invited all patriots to assassination, proclaiming that the greatest benefit any Englishman could render his country would be to murder Cromwell; and yet the protector, even sick and dispirited as he was, was capable of quelling this universal storm. He called a meeting of officers; he harangued the city and common council; beheaded Dr. Hewitt and Sir Henry Slingsby; threw other plotters into prison; hanged three that were taken with arms in their hands in Cheapside; and not only preserved his authority at home, but also prosecuted his wars abroad with vigour and success. Those English troops serving with Turenne gained a brilliant victory over the Spaniards commanded by Don Juan and the Duke of York, and helped to take Dunkirk, which, according to the treaty, was delivered to Cromwell, and well garrisoned with Englishmen. But the protector was sinking to the grave. "The first symptoms of this great man's last sickness appeared presently upon the death of his daughter Claypole, whose end is thought by many to have hastened his dissolution. About the beginning of October, his distemper discovered itself to be a bastard tertian ague, which, for a week's time, threatened no danger. But presently he began to grow worse, and so was brought from Hampton Court (where he first fell sick, and where he made a will as to his domestic affairs) to London." At first he spoke confidently of his recovery, and of the good things he intended, by the grace of Heaven, to do for his country; but his malady gained rapidly upon him, and during the night of the 2d of September, less than a month after the death of his dear daughter, he was assured that his end was approaching, and was overheard by Major Butler uttering this prayer-"Lord, I am a poor foolish creature; this people would have me live; they think it will be best for them, and that it will

1

1 Perfect Politician.

Immediately after the death of Oliver Cromwell the council assembled, and, being satisfied that the protector in his lifetime, according to the "Petition and Advice," had declared his son Richard to be his successor, they gave orders for his being proclaimed in a solemn manner. The neighbouring princes and states sent ministers to condole with him on the death of his father, and to congratulate him on his happy and peaceable succession to the government. The army serving in Flanders, and still gaining laurels there, proclaimed Richard at Dunkirk and in their camp, and sent over respectful addresses to him. The officers of the navy gladly acknowledged his authority, and pledged themselves to

2 "Never," said his friend and secretary Thurloe, "was there

any man so prayed for as he was during his sickness, solemn assemblies meeting every day to beseech the Lord for the continuance of his life; so that he is gone to heaven, embalmed with the tears of his people, and upon the wings of the prayers

of the saints."-Letter to Henry Cromwell, written on the 4th of September.

3 Kennet Letter of Lord Falconbridge to Henry Cromwell in Ther State Papers.

5 The matrix of the cast from the face of Cromwell is preserved at Oxford. Some of the hairs of the head and beard adhere to the plaster. The cast from which the drawing is made formerly

belonged to William Godwin, author of a History of the Commonwealth of England, and is now in possession of J. W. Archer.

protector. The disguised royalists, of course,
joined the republicans. An act of recognition
was, however, passed, and a revenue was settled
for the new protector. Then a fierce attack was
made upon "the other house," and upon the late
administration of Oliver, whose best ministers
were singled out for impeachment. But the
army soon stayed these proceedings, by joining
with the ultra-republican section. Under General
Lambert, a council of officers was called and
established, and they voted that the command of
the army should be put into better hands, and
that every officer should declare his approval of
the conduct of the army and the proceedings
against the late Charles Stuart, or resign his
commission. The commons declared such meet-
ings and councils illegal. On this the Lamber-
tians drew up a representation to Richard, setting
forth their want of pay, the insolence of their
enemies, and their designs, together with some in
power, to ruin the army and the good old cause,
and to bring in the enemies thereof, to prevent
which they desired his highness to provide effec-
tual remedy. "This," says Whitelock,
(6 was the
beginning of Richard's fall, and set on foot by
his own relations." The parliament took no
course to provide money, but exasperated the
army, and all the members of "the other house."
And hereupon the army compelled Richard to
dissolve the parliament on the 22d of April.

stand by him; and the same was done by General royalty, by the hot war they waged against the Monk and his officers in Scotland.' But Richard Cromwell was no soldier, and destitute of high commanding powers of any kind. He had lived a quiet retired life, as far as possible away from the turmoil of government and the bustle of the camp, and he was almost a stranger to that soldiery which his father had known personally almost to a man, and over which, by a rare combination of qualities-by a mixture of unflinching firmness in essentials and good nature in minor points, by devotion and by an easy familiarity which condescended to drollery-he had exercised an almost magical influence. The payment of the troops, too, was somewhat in arrears, and Richard found the coffers of the state almost empty. From these and other circumstances, which may be easily conceived, the military presently betrayed symptoms of discontent. His brother-in-law, Fleetwood, a good soldier, a favourite with the army, but a weak man in other respects, as well as ambitious and imprudent, became jealous of the new protector, who had nominated him to be, under himself, commanderin-chief of the land forces. Fleetwood secretly encouraged a strange petition, which was drawn up and presented, requiring the protector, in effect, to give up his control over the army. Richard replied that he had given the command of the forces to Fleetwood, who seemed generally acceptable to them; but that to gratify them further, or wholly to give up the power of the sword, was contrary to the constitution, which lodged that power in the hands of the protector and parliament jointly. By the advice of Thurloe, St. John, Fiennes, and others, Richard resolved to assemble the representatives of the people, and the members of "the other house."

The new parliament met on the A.D. 1659. 27th of January. The other house was the same despised nullity as before. Scarcely half of the members of the commons would obey the summons of Richard to meet him in that "other house," at the opening of the session. Without loss of time, the commons attacked his right to be lord-protector, and nearly every part of the present constitution, clamouring against the inexpediency and peril of allowing "the other house" to exist. Some of Richard's family and nearest connections joined in this outcry, some out of personal ambition or pique, some out of sheer republicanism. The republicans were invigorated by the return of Sir Harry Vane, Ludlow, and Bradshaw, who facilitated the manœuvres of General Monk, and the return of 1 Whitelock; Thurloe.

On the 6th of May, Lambert, Fleetwood, Desborough, and the general council of officers, keeping the promises they had made to the ultrarepublicans, published a declaration, inviting the members of the Long Parliament or Rump, who had continued sitting till Oliver's forcible ejectment of the 20th of April, 1653, to return to the exercise and discharge of their trust; and on the very next day old Speaker Lenthall, and all the survivors of the Rump, being escorted and guarded by Lambert's troops, went down to the house, and there took their seats as a lawful and indisputable parliament; and, being seated, they forthwith voted that there should be no protector, no king, no "other house." Richard Cromwell retired quietly to Hampton Court, and signed his demission, or resignation, in form. Fleetwood, whose wife was Richard's sister, made a proffer of allegiance to the restored Rump in the name of the army at London, and General Monk hastened to write from Scotland to express the entire concurrence of himself and army in the new revolution which had been effected. On the 22d of June (and not sooner), letters were received from Henry Cromwell, a much more stirring or bolder man than his brother, notify

The petitioners required that no officer should be deprived of his commission except by a court-martial; and that the powering his submission, and the submission of his

of granting commissions should be intrusted to some person whose services had placed him above suspicion

army in Ireland, to the present parliament.

side, Hazlerig and his friends consulted how they might restore themselves to power, "and they had some hopes of Monk to be their champion." The council of officers displeased Monk by appointing Lambert to the command in Scotland.'

Pressed by want of money, the Rump proposed to be their commander-in-chief. On the other selling the three royal palaces of Whitehall, Somerset House, and Hampton Court; but they were sold themselves, or were interrupted and dismissed, before they could carry into effect this project in finance. They had scarcely warmed their seats ere they were alarmed by numerous plots and riots raised by the royalists. These troubles grew worse and worse, and in the beginning of August insurrections broke out at the same moment in several parts of the country, the most important being one in Cheshire and Lancashire, headed by Sir George Booth, who was daily expecting to be joined by Charles II. and his brother the Duke of York. But Lambert gave a total rout to Sir George Booth's force. Charles, who had got everything ready, deferred his voyage. Booth and the young Earl of Derby, with many others, were arrested and thrown into the Tower; and by the end of August this formidable insurrection was completely subdued.

But the Rump which sat in the house, and the army which had placed them there, presently quarrelled with each other. The Rump claimed an entire control over the forces by land or by sea; the army, charging the Rump with base ingratitude, claimed to be independent and supreme. An act was passed to dismiss Lambert, Desborough, Fleetwood, and seven or eight other principal officers. Hazlerig, who was the chief mover in these bold parliamentary transactions, was encouraged by letters from Monk, assuring him that he and the army in Scotland would stand by the parliament, and by the like promises from Ludlow, who had succeeded Henry Cromwell in the command of the forces in Ireland. But Monk and Ludlow were far away, and the English army was close at hand. On the 13th of October, Lambert collected his troops in Westminster Hall, Palace-yard, and the avenues leading to the house; and when the speaker came up in his coach they stopped him, and made him turn back; and they treated most part of the members in the same way, so that the house could not sit. The council of state sat, and there the hostile parties, the army men and the Rump men, came into fierce collision. The civilians accused the army of being destroyers of liberty; the officers retorted, saying that the Rump would not have left them any liberty to destroy; and Colonel Sydenham protested that the army had been obliged to apply this last remedy by a special commission from Divine Providence. Desborough, Cromwell's brother-in-law, said with more bluntness, "Because the parliament intended to dismiss us, we had a right to dismiss the parliament." On the next day, the officers of the army debated about a settlement, or new constitution; and declared Fleetwood, Richard's brother-in-law,

It was at this critical moment that Monk, who had been courted and feared by both parties, began to play his own game. He had been a royalist before he became a parliamentarian; he had been a hot Long Parliament man or Rumpite, and then a still hotter Cromwellite; and he was ready to become king's man or devil's man. or anything else that best promised to promote his own interests.

On the 29th October, the officers of the army received a letter from him expressive of his dissatisfaction at their late proceedings, and the committee of safety received intelligence through other channels that Monk had secured Berwick for himself and was looking towards London. Lambert

was instantly appointed to command the forces in the north of England; and Colonels Whalley and Goffe, and Caryl and Barker, ministers of the gospel, were sent to Monk, "to persuade him to a right understanding of things and prevent effusion of blood." Monk in the meanwhile sent to assure the leaders of the Rump that his sole object was to relieve parliament from military oppression: and he called God to witness that he was above all things a friend to liberty and the Commonwealth. Writing to Hazlerig, whom he duped, he said, "As to a commonwealth, believe me, sir, for I speak it in the presence of Godit is the desire of my soul." But if Monk duped

Whitelock; Ludlow: Parl. Hist.

: Clarendon