If any farther discovery be with you about any other passages on Colonel Alured's part, I pray examine them, and speed them to us; and send Colonel Alured over hither with the first opportunity. Not having more upon this subject at present, I rest, Your loving father, OLIVER P. 'P.S.' I desire you that the Officer, whom you appoint to assist the shipping of the Forces, may have the money in Colonel Alured's hands, for carrying on the Service; and also that he may leave what remains at Carrickfergus for the Commander-in-chief, who shall call for it there. § This is the Enclosure, above spoken of: LETTER CXCIV. 'To Colonel Alured: These.' 'Whitehall,' 16th May 1654. SIR, I desire you to deliver-up into the hands of Lieutenant-General Fleetwood such Authorities and Instructions as you had for the prosecution of the Business of the Highlands in Scotland; and 'that' you forthwith repair to me to London; the reason whereof you shall know when you come hither, which I would have you do with all speed. I would have you also give an account to the Lieutenant-General, before you come away, how far you have proceeded in this Service, and what money you have in your hands, which you are to leave with him. I rest, § Thurloe, ii. 285. Your loving friend, §§ Ibid. ii. 286. - This Colonel Alured is one of several Yorkshire Alureds somewhat conspicuous in these wars; whom we take to be Nephews or Sons of the valuable Mr. Alured or Ald'red who wrote "to old Mr. Chamberlain,' in the last generation, one morning, during the Parliament of 1628, when certain honourable Gentlemen held their Speaker down, - a Letter which we thankfully read. One of them, John, was Member in this Long Parliament; a Colonel too, and King's Judge; who is now dead. Here is another, Colonel Matthew Alured, a distinguished soldier and republican; who is not dead; but whose career of usefulness is here ended. "Repairing forthwith to London," to the vigilant Lord Protector, he gives what account he can of himself; none that will hold water, I perceive; lingers long under a kind of arrest "at the Mews" or elsewhere; soliciting either freedom and renewed favour, or a fair trial and punishment; gets at length committal to the Tower, trial by Court Martial,- dismissal from the service.** A fate like that of several others in a similar case to his. Poor Alured! But what could be done with him? He had Republican Anabaptist notions; he had discontents, enthusiasms, which might even ripen into tendencies to correspond with Charles Stuart. Who knows if putting him in a stone waistcoat, and general strait-waistcoat of a mild form, was not the mercifullest course that could be taken with him? He must stand here as the representative to us of one of the fatallest elements in the new Lord Protector's position: the Republican discontents and tendencies to plot, fermenting in his own Army. Of which we shall perhaps find elsewhere room to say another word. Republican Overton, Milton's friend, whom we have known at Hull and elsewhere; Okey, the fierce dragoon Colonel and zealous Anabaptist; Alured, whom we see here; Ludlow, sitting sulky in Ireland: all these are already summoned up, or about being summoned, to give account of themselves. Honourable, brave and faithful men: * Vol. i. p. 58 et seq. **Whitlocke, pp. 499, 510; Thurloe, ii. 294, 313, 414; Burton's Diary (London, 1828), iii, 46; Commons Journals, vii. 678. it is, as Oliver often says, the saddest thought of his heart that he must have old friends like them for enemies! But he cannot help it; they will have it so. They must go their way, he his. - he Much need of vigilance in this Protector! Directly on the back of these Republican commotions, come out Royalist ones; with which however the Protector is less straitened to deal. Lord Deputy Fleetwood has not yet received his Letter at Dublin, when here in London emerges a Royalist Plot; the first of any gravity; known in the old Books and State-Trials as Vowel and Gerard's Plot, or Somerset Fox's Plot. Plot for assassinating the Protector, as usual. Easy to do it, as he goes to Hampton Court on a Saturday, Saturday the 20th of May, for example. Provide thirty stout men; and do it then. Gerard, a young Royalist Gentleman, connected with Royalist Colonels afterwards Earls of Macclesfield, will provide Five-and-twenty; some Major Henshaw, Colonel Finch, or I know not who, shall bring the other Five. "Vowel a Schoolmaster at Islington, who taught many young gentlemen," strong for Church and King, cannot act in the way of shooting; busies himself consulting, and providing arms. "Billingsley the Butcher in Smithfield," he, aided by Vowel, could easily "seize the Troopers' horses grazing in Islington fields;" while others of us unawares fall upon the soldiers at the Mews? Easy then to proclaim King Charles in the City; after which Prince Rupert arriving with "Ten-thousand Irish, English and French," and all the Royalists rising, — the King should have his own again, and we were all made men; and Oliver once well killed, the Commonwealth itself were as good as dead! Saturday the 20th of May; then, say our Paris expresses, then! Alas, in the very birthtime of the hour, "five of the Conspirators are seized in their beds;" Gerard, Vowel, all the leaders are seized; Somerset Fox confesses for his life; whosoever is guilty can be seized: and the Plot is like water spilt upon the ground!* A High Court of Justice must decide *French Le Bas dismissed for his share in it: Appendix, No. 30. upon it; and with Gerard and Vowel it will probably go hard. LETTER CXCV. REFERS to a small private or civic matter: the Vicarage of Christ-Church, Newgate Street, the patronage of which belongs to "the Mayor, Commonalty and Citizens of London as Governors of the Royal Hospital of St. Bartholomew" ever since Henry the Eighth's time. * The former Incumbent, it would seem, had been removed by the Council of State; some Presbyterian probably, who was, not without cause, offensive to them. If now the Electors and the State could both agree on Mr. Turner, it would "silence" several Whether they did questions, thinks the Lord Protector. agree? Who "Mr. Turner," of such "repute for piety and learning," was? These are questions. To the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Vyner, Knight, Lord Mayor of London: These. MY LORD MAYOR, 'Whitehall,' 5th July 1654. It is not my custom now, nor shall be, without some special cause moving, to interpose anything to the hindrance of any in the free course of their presenting persons to serve in the Public Ministry. But, well considering how much it concerns the public peace, and what an opportunity may be had of promoting the interest of the Gospel, if some eminent and fit person of a pious and peaceable spirit and conversation were placed in Christ-Church, and though I am not ignorant what interest the State may justly challenge to supply that place, which by an Order of State is become void, notwithstanding any resignation that is made: * Elmes's Topographical Dictionary of London, in voce. Yet forasmuch as your Lordship and the rest of the Governors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital are about to present thereunto a person of known nobility and integrity before you, namely Mr. Turner, I am contented, if you think good so to improve the present opportunity as to present him to the place, to have all other questions silenced; - I which will not alone be the fruit thereof; but I believe also the true good of the Parish therein concerned will be thereby much furthered. 'P.S.' I can assure you few men of his time in England have a better repute for piety and learning than Mr. Turner. § I am apt to think the Mr. Turner in question may have been Jerom Turner, of whom there is record in Wood: * a Somersetshire man, distinguished among the Puritans; who takes refuge in Southampton, and preaches with zeal, learning, piety and general approbation during the Wars there. He afterwards removed "to Neitherbury, a great country Parish in Dorsetshire," and continued there, "doing good in his zealous way." If this were he, the Election did not take effect according to Oliver's program; — perhaps Jerom himself declined it? He died, still at Neitherbury, next year; hardly yet past middle age. "He had a strong memory, which he maintained good to the last by temperance," says old Antony: "He was well skilled in Greek and Hebrew, was "a fluent preacher, but too much addicted to Calvinism," which is to be regretted. "Pastor vigilantissimus, doctrinâ et § Lansdowne мss. 1236, fol. 104. The Signature alone of the Letter is Oliver's; but he has added the Postscript in his own hand. * Athenæ, iii. 404. |