dominions thereunto belonging; requiring all persons to yield him due obedience. Hereupon the trumpets sounded again, and the people (after the usual manner) gave several acclamations, with loud shouts, crying God save the lord-protector!' At the end of all, the protector, with his train, returned to Whitehall, and the members to the parliament-house, where they prorogued their sitting to the next January."* was mild and just. One who was his physician, but not his panegyrist, says,-"Justice (that we may not scourge him beyond his desert) was renewed almost to her former grace and splendour, as well distributive as commutative; the judges executing their office with equity and justice, far from covetousness; and the laws suffered, without delay or let, to have their full force upon all (a few excepted, where he himself was immediately concerned). The lives of men, outwardly at least, became reformed, either by withdrawing the incentives to luxury, or by means of the ancient laws now of new put into execution. There was also a strict discipline kept in his court; one could find none here that was either drunkard or whoremaster, none that was guilty of extortion or oppression, but he was severely rebuked. Now trade began to flourish; and (to say all in a word) all England over there were halcyon days."* About six weeks after Cromwell's inauguration he was afflicted by receiving the news of the death of the brave Blake, who, with wonderful success, had asserted in all seas the supremacy of the British flag,-who had done the most eminent service to parliament, to commonwealth, to the protector,— who had been the "first man that declined the old track, and made it manifest that the science might be attained in less time than was imagined, and despised those rules which had long been 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 formid The court and the manner of life of Cromwell continued quiet and modest, as they ever had been; not wanting, however, a certain sober dignity, which was more imposing than the tinsel and parade of most royalties. Everything at Hampton Court, his favourite residence, had an air of sobriety and decency: there was no riot, no debauchery, seen or heard of; yet it was not a dull place, the protector's humour being naturally of a cheerful turn. "He now provided him a guard of halberdiers in gray coats, welted with a black velvet, over whom Walter Strickland was captain. He frequently diverted himself at Hampton Court, whither he went and returned, commonly in post, with his guards behind and before. His own diet was spare and not curious, except in public treatments, which were constantly given the Monday in every week, to all the officers in the army not below a captain, where he used to dine with them. A table was likewise spread every day of the week for such officers as should casually come to court. He was a great lover of music, and entertained the most skilful in that science in his pay and family. He respected all persons that were eximious in any art, and would procure them to be sent or brought to him. Sometimes he would, for a frolic, before he had half dined, give order for the drum to beat and call in his foot-guards, who were permit-able, the first that infused that proportion of ted to make booty of all they found on the table. Sometimes he would be jocund with some of the nobility, and would tell them what company they had lately kept; when and where they had drunk the king's health and the royal family's; bidding them, when they did it again, to do it more privately; and this without any passion, and as festivous, droll discourse." He delighted especially to surround himself with the master-minds of his age and country-with men who have left immortal names behind them. Milton, the Latin secretary, was his familiar; honest Andrew Marvel was his frequent guest; Waller was his friend and kinsman; nor was the more youthful genius of Dryden excluded. Hartlib, a native of Poland, the bosomfriend of Milton, and the advocate of education, was honoured and pensioned; and so was Usher, the learned and amiable archbishop, notwithstanding his prelacy; and John Biddle, called the father of English Unitarians, received an allowance of a hundred crowns a-year. Even the fantastic, plotting Catholic, Sir Kenelm Digby, was among the protector's guests, and received support or assistance, on account, chiefly, of his literary merits. The general course of the protector's government courage into the seamen, by making them see Dr. Bate, Elenchus Motuum, Part ii. But + Clarendon. Perfect Politician.-The writer of this rich little volume adds, "lle 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 puuishment. 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 end stood his friend; especially in his last undertaking at the Canary Islands. To his 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 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 against the protector. and by the sea-scurvy; and he "who would never strike to any other enemy, struck his topmast to Death," as he was entering Plymouth Sound. The protector, drawing more closely to France, according to a private agreement, had prepared troops to join the French army under Turenne; and six thousand foot, some of them veterans, but most new recruits, 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, a very strong fort about two miles from Dunkirk. 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 capable of meaner things, offered to espouse one of Cromwell's daughters; but the Lord Protector told Orrery, who recommended the match, that Charles was so damnably debauched, he would undo them all.* A.D. 1658.-On the 20th of January the parliament met according to their adjournment, and received into the House their fellow members who had been prevented from taking their seats in the preceding session; this being done upon the fourth article of "The Petition and Advice," by which it was provided that no member legally chosen should be excluded from performance of his duty, but by consent of parliament. In the interval of the parliament's sitting, the protector had provided his peers who were to make up the other House, and these quasi-lords had been summoned by the same form of writs which had formerly been used for calling the peers to parliament. They were in all sixty, and among them were several noblemen, knights, and gentlemen of ancient family and good estates, the rest being for the most part colonels and officers of the army. Foremost on the list appear the names of the Lord Richard Cromwell, the protector's eldest son, the Lord Henry Cromwell, his other son, lord deputy of Ireland, Nathaniel Fiennes, Lisle, Fleetwood, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Mulgrave, the Earl of Manchester, Lord Eure, Viscount Saye, Viscount Lisle, Lord John Claypole, Charles Viscount Howard, Lord Wharton, Lord Falconbridge, General Monk, commander-in-chief of his highness's forces in Scotland, and Lord Edward Montague; and Whitelock, Haselrig, Whalley, Barkstead, Pride, Goff, Sir Christopher Pack, the ex-lord mayor of London, St. John, and other old friends of the protector, were among the remainder. 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 • Burnet.-Orrery's Letters. + Thurloe, State Papers.- Whitelock. VOL. III. If 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, who, in truth, having with difficulty consented to the formation of a second chamber or house, were determined that it should be second and inferior in all senses. But nearly every possible circumstance set strongly against the revival of the 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; the whole of that body feared to commit their hereditary right by sitting in an assembly where the tenure was only during life (the commonwealth men utterly abhorred the notion of an hereditary peerage), and in the pride and insolence of an aristocracy 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, Saye, 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 enemies, 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. In his short speech, however, he told the republicans or the levellers some unpalatable truths, and betrayed no fear, no misgiving as to his own powers of preserving peace in the land. When he had done, • Whitelock. 31 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. He told them to reflect upon the posture that the three nations were then in-a posture of peace-a quiet posture, a posture looking towards a settlement, a perfect settlement, with the blessed fruits thereof, justice and piety, plenty and prosperity: he alluded to the republicans, the party most feared, as to others "who would build upon contrary foundations, or upon no foundation at all." "I need not," continued Fiennes, "say much of them either; for those who conceit Utopias of I know not what kind of imaginary commonwealths, or day-dreams of the return of I know not what golden age, their notions are rather bottomed in conceit than in reason, and must rather be worn out by experience, than argued down by reason; for, when they come to be put in practice, they presently discover their weakness and imconsistency, and that they are altogether unpracticable and infeasible, or of very short durance and continuance; as hath appeared so often as they have been assayed or attempted." From hearing this long discourse, the Commons returned to their own House with irritated and hostile feelings; and there it was soon 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 and essential part of that constitution. The attack was led by Haselrig, 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;" and in the course of a fiery debate many spoke both angrily and contemptuously of the dignity and authority of that lamely-restored branch of the legislature; insomuch "that now they would not own the work of their creation, but looked upon it as a bye-blow, a thing by chance, or a pageant parliament set up on purpose to mock them." 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 state 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, who was right in his reasoning as applied to that mongrel "the Other House," but who was madly wrong in fancying that a constitution could march with one unchecked and irresponsible chamber, raked up the whole history of the peers (a lamentable one!) 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 ourselves, or upon some other object. We called the 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, and it was hoped the people of England should never again have a negative upon them."* 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. The protector looked upon himself as aimed at by them, though with a side wind, and with testimonies of their envy towards him; and he was the more incensed, because at this time the Fifth-monarchy men began again their enterprises to overthrow him and his government by force; whereof there were clear discoveries: he therefore took a resolution suddenly to dissolve this parliament." 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, told them of the hostile temper and the contempt of "The Petition and Advice" which they had betrayed, of the intrigues in which many of them were engaged, and then saying, that urgent and weighty reasons made it necessary in order to the public peace and safety to proceed to an immediate dissolution, he concluded with these words:" I do dissolve this parliament, and let God judge between me and you." And thus ended Cromwell's last parliament, which had sat only fourteen days. 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 • Burton. f hands;" the army was murmuring for want of pay; the royalists were spirited and combined by means of the Marquess of Ormond, who, during the sitting of parliament, had passed several days in disguise and concealment in the city of London, and had returned safely to Charles II. at Bruges; the Levellers and Fifth-monarchy men were pledging their desperate services to those that could dupe them; Cromwell's old friend Harrison, who had been released from the Tower after a short confinement, was deep in the plot;" Colonel Silas Titus, a Presbyterian royalist, or Colonel Sexby, or whoever 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 conjuring this universal storm. He called a meeting of officers; he harangued the city and common council; beheaded Dr. Hewit 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. general in the Low Countries, Sir John Reynolds, had been cast away and drowned upon the Goodwin Sands, but Lockhart, who succeeded to his command, was not only equal to Reynolds as a soldier, but an excellent and tried diplomatist to boot. These English troops, serving with Turenne, gained a brilliant victory over the Spaniards commanded by Don Juan and the Duke of York; helped to take Dunkirk, which according to the treaty was delivered to Cromwell, and well garrisoned with Englishmen by Lockhart, who bore an honourable share (at least a soldier's) in that brilliant campaign, wherein Turenne gained Dixmude, Gravelines, Oudenard, and a congeries of other important fortresses. And the young Louis XIV., who had begun to make his promenades to the army, congratulated his brother the protector on the admirable tenue, discipline, and bravery of his troops. His "The year gliding thus away in victories and triumphs, Dunkirk enforced to grow under the shade of the English oak, and all prospering so well in Flanders as if Mars himself had borne the English banner, caused endearing congratulations mutually to pass between the protector and his cousin of France. The Lord Falconbridge being made one of the blood by matrimony, carried the first compliment to Calais, and there presented it to the king; which was quickly after returned back again by Monsieur Mancini, nephew to Cardinal Mazarin, and the Duke de Crequi: these arrived at London to present their respects; which having done they returned with high satisfaction. These being departed, another far less welcome messenger arrived at the English court, even Death itself, who came to require of our great Cromwell what was his due by nature. 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, for on his well-day it hindered him not from going abroad. 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 2nd 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 redound much to thy glory. All the stir is about 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. . . . I am a conqueror, and more than a conqueror, through Jesus Christ who strengtheneth me." In the course of that night, and not before, he declared, in the presence of four or five of the council, that " my Lord Richard " should be his successor. On the following morning he was speechless, and he expired between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 3rd of September, the day which he accounted his happiest day, the anniversary of his great victories of Worcester and Dunbar. He was in the 60th year of his age, having been born on the 25th of April, 1599. Immediately after the death of Oliver Cromwell the council assembled, and being satisfied that the protector in his life-time, 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, first in London and Westminster, and then in all the chief cities and towns in England, and at Dunkirk, and in all other possessions abroad. Addresses poured in to the new Lord Protector, declaring great satisfaction in his succession, and resolutions to adhere to him. The congregational churches hastened to express their gladness, and all the minor sects their joy, and their hopes that he would follow the footsteps of his glorious father, and secure freedom of conscience to all Christians. The neighbouring RICHARD CROMWELL. From a Miniature by Cooper. 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 stand by him; and the same was done by General Monk and his officers in Scotland.* "It has pleased God hitherto," writes Thurloe to Henry Cromwell, on the 7th of September, to give his highness your brother a very easy and peaceable entrance upon his government. There is not a dog that wags his tongue, so great a calm are we in. The Lord continue it, and give him a just and understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and in before this great people, whose peace and liberty he is entrusted with!" 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 Whitelock.-Thurloe. 66 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. In the same letter of the 7th of September, wherein Thurloe speaks of the easy and peaceable entrance," he says;"But I must needs acquaint your excellency, that there are some secret murmurings in the army, as if his highness were not general of the army, as his father was; and they would look upon him and the army as divided, and as if the conduct of the army should be elsewhere, and in other hands; but I am not able to say what this will come to." Richard soon saw what it came to. His brother-inlaw, 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, commander-in-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 The petitioners required that no officer should be deprived of his commission except by a court-martial; and that the power of granting commissions should be entrusted to some person whose services had placed him above suspicion. |