general council of officers published a declaration inviting the members of the Long Parliament to return to the exercise and discharge of their trust. Lenthall, the old Speaker, at first refused, but afterwards with many other members of the Rump, obeyed. Their first proceeding was to pass a declaration to secure the liberty of the people without protectorate, kingship, or house of peers.

Richard Cromwell accepted the decision cheerfully, and at once; resigned his protectorate, and retired to Hampton Court. The Rump had, however, thrown on him all the heavy expenses of the public and magnificent funeral of Cromwell in Westminster Abbey. On the 4th of July they passed, therefore, a startling vote to exempt him from all arrests for debt, and on the 16th agreed to pay all his debts, and arrange a comfortable maintenance for himself and family. Plots and risings now became general, but were of no avail.

The parliament soon managed to quarrel with the army: insisting that the officers should take out new commissions from themselves, and that the whole military service should be in dependence on the civil power. They dismissed Lambert, Desborough, and seven or eight principal officers who had signed a letter of remonstrance; they passed an Act for putting Fleetwood out of the command-in-chief, and appointed Ludlow, Monk, Hazelrig, Walton, Morley, and Overton to share his authority.

The officers were enraged. Lambert drew some troops together, stationed them in King-street, and around the Abbey church yard, and when the Speaker came in his coach, they stopped it and turned him back; treating the other members the same way, and preventing their entering the Houses. The Rump and the Army now came into fierce collision. At last it was arranged that the parliament should not sit, that the officers should provide for the preservation of peace, and that a new parliament should be called which should settle everything.

In the midst of these discords general Monk, at the head of 8,000 veterans, marched from Scotland toward London. No one knew what his intentions were, for he veiled his designs in profound secrecy. On arriving at St. Albans, he kept a day of fasting and prayer, and then wrote to the Rump (which had resumed its sittings), requiring that all the soldiers in and about London should be removed to make way for the godly troops he had brought from Scotland. The order was readily obeyed, and Monk marched into London. He insisted on the secluded members of the Long Parliament being allowed to sit again; they met, passed some resolutions, and then dissolved; and on April 25 the new parliament, freely chosen,

met.

Lambert was shut up in the Tower, and the peers resumed their seats in the Upper House.

On the 1st of May sir John Granville, who had negotiated between Monk and the king, presented himself with despatches from Charles himself—an epistle to the lords; one to the commons; one to Monk; one to the lord mayor and aldermen of London. The letter to the commons contained the famous "Declaration of Breda," offering indemnity for the past, and liberty of conscience for the future.

These despatches were received with transport. The letter was eagerly read, and after a moment's pause, the commons with loud acclamations accepted the royal offer, glad once more to rest from civil strife and faction under the crown.

RICHARD CROMWELL AND GENERAL MONK.

GUIZOT.

Richard Cromwell really wished to put an end to the country's agitations and his own by treating immediately with the king. He was not deficient in sense or honesty, but he had neither ambition nor greatness of mind. His father's career and destiny, of which he had been a sharer, had excited in him a feeling of fatigue rather than of confidence. He did not believe in the recurrence of a similar success in his own case, nor did he feel himself capable of bearing a similar burden. But neither was he a man to take a final and unalterable resolution in so weighty a matter. He was undecided and weak, overwhelmed with debts, and looking out on every side for the issue of what was pending. He continued the sport of a fortune, the vanity of which he felt, and the instrument of men inferior to himself in understanding. Some solution of the present state of things was absolutely necessary. All the men of mark or influence who had brought about the Revolution, or whom the Revolution had raised into notice, had been repeatedly put to the proof. Though their attempts to govern the country had not been thwarted or obstructed by any external obstacle or national resistance, none of them had succeeded. They had destroyed each other. They had all exhausted in these fruitless conflicts whatever reputation or whatever strength they might otherwise have preserved. Their nullity was completely bare. Nevertheless, England was still at their mercy. The nation had lost in these long and melancholy alternations of anarchy and despotism the habit of ruling and the courage to rule its own destinies. Cromwell's army was still in existence, incapable of forming a government, but overturning every one who did not please it.

It was a stranger to political parties, a soldier highly respected by the army, a faithful servant of the parliament and Cromwell, and of even Richard Cromwell at his accession, who perceived that there was but one conclusion of this anarchy possible, and endeavoured to lead his weary country to that goal without conflict and without convulsion.

There was nothing great in the character of Monk but good sense and courage. He had no thirst for glory, no desire for power, no lofty principles or designs either for his country or himself; but he had a profound aversion to disorder, and to those iniquitous excesses which popular parties clothe with fair promises. He was attached to his duties as a soldier and an Englishman, not ostentatiously, but with firmness and modesty. He was no charlatan and no declaimer; he was discreet even to taciturnity, and absolutely indifferent to truth or falsehood. He dissembled with imperturbable coolness and patience to bring about the result which seemed to him necessary to the welfare of England-the peaceable restoration of the only government which could be stable and regular. All the rest was in his eyes nothing more than a chaos of doubtful questions and party quarrels. He succeeded. All the fractions of the great monarchical party suspended their ancient animosities, their blind impatience, and their conflicting claims, and united to support him. The Restoration came to pass like a natural and inevitable event, without costing either victors or vanquished a drop of blood; and Charles II. re-entering London in the midst of immense acclamations could say with truth, "It is certainly my fault that I did not come back before, for I have seen nobody to-day who did not protest that he had always wished for my return."

BOOK VII.

REIGN OF CHARLES II.

THE EDITOR.

On the 29th of May, 1660, Charles II. made his solemn entry into London, attended by the members of both houses of parliament, the bishops, the lord mayor, and aldermen,

His reception was so enthusiastic that he exclaimed that it must surely have been his own fault that he had been so long in exile. The streets were indeed crowded; garlands and flowers were strewn in his path; the night was made radiant with bonfires.

The king's first action on entering Whitehall was to invest general Monk with the order of the garter, and make him a member of the privy council. The king next granted a free pardon to all except those whom the parliament should except, and also declared that no man should henceforward be persecuted for his religious opinions, The commons were actuated by a perfect frenzy of loyalty; the "tonnage and poundage," so fiercely disputed with poor king Charles I., were instantly voted to the new king for life! The regicides who were still living, and in the kingdom, were brought to trial, but only ten were executed, the rest being reprieved, and either exiled or imprisoned. Harrison died justifying his conduct to the last. Sir Harry Vane (though not absolutely a regicide) was executed on the very same spot where Stratford (whose death had been procured by his unscrupulous artifices) had suffered. Lambert was exiled to Guernsey, where he lived thirty years, and died a Roman catholic.

Charles began his reign with a ministry formed of the best and wisest of all parties, lord Clarendon being chancellor, and the government was carried on for a time with justice and moderation. The old standing army of the republicans was disbanded. Episcopacy was restored, and an act of uniformity was passed. Presbyterians refusing to sign it were deprived of their livings. Charles, also, established episcopacy in Scotland, and persuaded one of the leaders of the presbyterians, Dr. Sharp, to accept the arch'ishopric of St. Andrews.

Trade jealousies had been constantly growing between the Dutch and English since Blake's victories, and in 1664 the whole nation was eager for war. The king, though the Dutch had been kinder to him than any other people during his exile, was not insensible to the injury they did to the commerce of the country by underselling the English in every market, and opposing its merchants everywhere abroad. Mereever, the fection then ruling the republic was in close union with France; and Charles hoped that, if that party could be displaced, and his nephew, young William of Orange, le placed at the head of affairs, the States while in sort of dependence on England. His pecuniary difficulties, however, were the chief cause which induced him to comply with the wides of his peple ; probably Le hoped that some of the supplies voted for the war would fill into his can hak The duke of Yock, hating the protestant Stats and a man of energy and a urged on the war volle ently, in spite of Canada's opposition to h

declared, and hostilities commenced. We have no space to enumerate or describe the sea fights which followed, and which were the fiercest and most equally contested that England had ever waged. The first was a dearly bought victory, won by the duke of York, which caused great consternation in Holland. But the pensionary, De Witt, by his courage and energy, renewed their resolution; and France-then the ally of Holland-also sent forth her fleet to contend on the sea with England. Continuous days of fighting occurred, with terrible carnage on both sides, but without decisive success on either side.

While this war was going on, a terrible calamity befell London. A great fire broke out, which destroyed four hundred streets, and thirteen thousand houses. This calamity, however, proved in the end a great blessing, as seeming evils often do. The dwellings, built of wood, and with no windows that opened, had been storehouses of infection; and the plague had been almost chronic in the city, breaking out violently in nearly every century. After the fire the houses were rebuilt, with wider and more regular streets, and of brick, instead of wood and laths. The plague scarcely ever afterwards showed itself, though it had raged with terrible violence just before the great fire.

Charies now began to think that the ends for which the war had been undertaken were destined to prove abortive. The Dutch grew daily in vigour, and had immense resources of all kinds, while two powerful kings-those of France and Denmark—were their allies. England had no ally but the bishop of Munster; moreover, the supplies granted by parliament for the war were nearly exhausted, and a great debt incurred to the seamen, who were at last paid only with promissory tickets. The king resolved, therefore, to make peace, and negotiations were opened at Breda. Feeling sure of their successful termination, Charles, with illtimed economy, or to save the remaining money for himself, remitted all military preparations, and left the country entirely defenceless. De Witt was aware of this, and determined to strike a blow at the enemy once more. He skilfully protracted the negociations at Breda, and sent the Dutch fleet, under de Ruyter, to the Thames. It unexpectedly appeared before Sheerness, which was soon taken in spite of the valour of Sir Edward Sprague, who defended it. They broke the chain across the Medway, and burned the three ships which guarded it. They advanced to Chatham and burned the Royal Oak, the Loyal London, aud the Great James.

Captain Douglas, who commanded the Royal Oak, died amidst the flames of his ship, though he might easily have escaped. "Never,” he said, “was it known that a Douglas had left his post without orders." The greatest consternation prevailed in London; and, if Louis had joined the Dutch then, and invaded England, the most fatal result might have ensued. But the French king had no wish to give so great a superiority to the States. His interest required that a balance should be kept between the two great naval powers.

The Dutch, however, sailed with little injury down the Medway, and steered their course for Portsmouth, on which they made a fruitless attempt. Plymouth resisted them successfully; but they insulted Harwich, and again sailed up the Thames to Tilbury, where they were repulsed.

This insult to the English flag was actually left unavenged, though the nation was highly indignant. The feeble government continued the negotiations for peace in the face of insult and humiliation,-the first time, alas, not the last time, the country has been thus disgraced-and Charles was saved from the threatened difficulties with the parliament (which he had been obliged to assemble) by the treaty of Breda. But the people were infuriated, and it was requisite to make some sacrifice to appease them. Lord Clarendon-who had actually opposed the war!— was made the scapegoat for the national shame. The sale of Dunkirk to the

French-made by the king's command, and for his needs-the bad payment of the seamen, the disgraceful end of the war, were all charged on the chancellor. Clarendon had personally displeased the king by having been concerned in the marriage of Miss Stuart to the Duke of Richmond. He had also offended one of the king's shameful favourites, the countess of Castlemaine. The courtiers, and even perhaps the people, were jealous of his prosperity. The latter called a great house he was building Dunkirk house. The great chancellor's fate was scaled. He was impeached, in spite of the efforts of the duke of York, who had married his daughter, Anne Hyde, and, warned by the fate of Strafford, did not wait for his trial, but retired to the continent, and from thence wrote a letter exculpating himself to the house of lords. A bill of banishment and incapacity was, however, passed against him, which received the royal assent. He survived his fall six years, and employed his leisure in writing. After the exile of Clarendon, prince Rupert and the duke of Ormond, with other men of high character, had the chief power in the council. In 1668 the king, in order to acquire popularity, entered into the triple alliance with Holland and Sweden-a defensive alliance by which England recovered her lost influence and credit in Europe.

But an evil change was coming over the king. He changed the committee of council established for foreign affairs; prince Rupert, the duke of Ormond, secretary Trevor, the lord keeper, Bridgman, were never called to any deliberations. The whole government was trusted to five persons, who, from the initials of their names or titles, were called by the people the cabal. They were sir Thomas Clifford, lord Ashley, the duke of Buckingham, lord Arlington, and the earl, soon after duke of Lauderdale. These men counselled the king to reverse all that he had hitherto done to please the people, urging him to a close alliance with France, and a second war with Holland in conjunction with Louis. Charles had long wished for the alliance; and his wishes were strengthened by a visit from his sister Henrietta, who had married the duke of Orleans, brother to the French king. This beautiful princess prevailed on her brother to give up all his principles of honour and policy, to consent to an alliance with Louis, and even to accept a yearly pension from him, and to promise to re-establish the Roman catholic church in England. Henrietta brought with her a young French lady named De Querouaille, whom she left with the king, and who became henceforward his chief medium of communication with France. She was created by the king duchess of Portsmouth.

The great English minister, sir William Temple, was recalled from the Hague. This was the first step in Charles's new course. But the king and his "cabal" kept their intentions still a profound secret; and when parliament met, the minister urged on its members the mighty increase of the French navy, triple now to what it was in the Dutch war, and the decay of that of the English, the triple alliance, and the defensive league with the states-all of which were motives for asking for a liberal supply of money. The artifice succeeded. The house, pleased with the protestant alliance, jealous for the honour of the country, and thinking that the king meant well, granted very large and liberal supplies. Never, perhaps, had they been less merited. About this time a disbanded officer of the protector's, named Blood, who had been attainted for raising an insurrection in Ireland, and meditated revenge for his disgrace by the death of the duke of Ormond, committed an audacious crime. He drew off the duke's footmen by an artifice, and attacked his coach one night in St. James's-street, London, had him torn out of it, bound, and put on horseback behind one of his ruffians, and was carrying him to Tyburn, intending to hang him there, when the duke managed to throw himself from the horse, bringing his captor down with him, and, while they were struggling in the mire, the duke's servants rescued him, but Blood escaped. He was supposed to