with a postillion driving other two. The horses, beautiful animals, tasting of the whip, became unruly; galloped, would not be checked, but took to plunging; plunged the postillion down; plunged or shook his Highness down, 'dragging him by the foot for some time,' so that ‘a pistol went off in his pocket,' to the amazement of men. Whereupon? Whereupon-his Highness got up again, little the worse; was let blood; and went about his affairs much as usual!43 Small anecdote, that figures, larger than life, in all the Books and Biographies. I have known men thrown from their horses on occasion, and less noise made about it, my erudite friend! But the essential point was, his Highness wore a pistol.—Yes, his Highness is prepared to defend himself; has men, and has also truculent-flunkies, and devils and devil's-servants of various kinds, to defend himself against;— and wears pistols, and what other furniture outward and inward may be necessary for the object. Such of you as have an eye

that way can take notice of it!

Thursday 16th November 1654. On the other hand, what a glimpse into the interior domesticities of the Protector Household have we in the following brief Note! Amid the darkness and buzzard dimness, one light-beam, clear, radiant, mournfully beautiful, like the gleam of a sudden star, disclosing for a moment many things to us! On Friday, Secretary Thurloe writes incidentally: 'My Lord Protector's Mother, of Ninety' four years old, died last night. A little before her death she gave my Lord her blessing, in these words: "The Lord cause His face to shine upon you; and comfort you in all your ad'versities; and enable you to do great things for the glory of your Most High God, and to be a relief unto His People. My dear Son, I leave my heart with thee. A good night !" '44 —and therewith sank into her long sleep. Even so. Words of ours are but idle. Thou brave one, Mother of a Hero, farewell! -Ninety-four years old: the royalties of Whitehall, says Ludlow very credibly, were of small moment to her: at the sound ' of a musket she would often be afraid her Son was shot; and ' could not be satisfied unless she saw him once a day at least.'45 She, old, weak, wearied one, she cannot help him with his refractory Pedant Parliaments, with his Anabaptist plotters, Roy.

43 Thurloe, i. 652-3; Ludlow, ii. 508.

44 Thurloe to Pell, 17th November 1654: in Vaughan's Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (London, 1839), i. 81.

45 Ludlow, ii. 488.

alist assassins, and world-wide confusions; but she bids him, Be strong, be comforted in God. And so Good night! And in the still Eternities and divine Silences-Well, are they not divine?

December 26th, 1654. The refractory Parliament and other dim confusions still going on, we mark as a public event of some significance, the sailing of his Highness's Sea-Armament. It has long been getting ready on the Southern Coast; sea-forces, land-forces; sails from Portsmouth on Christmas morrow, as above marked. 46— None yet able to divine whither bound; not even the Generals, Venables and Penn, till they reach a certain latitude. Many are much interested to divine! Our Brussels Correspondent writes long since, 'The Lord Protector's Go'vernment makes England more formidable and considerable 'to all Nations than ever it has been in my days.'47

LETTERS CXCVI. CXCVII.

HERE are Two small Letters, harmlessly reminding us of far interests and of near;-otherwise yielding no new light; but capable of being read without commentary. Read them; and let us hasten to dissolve the poor Constitutioning Parliament, which ought not to linger on these pages, or on any page.

LETTER CXCVI.

To Richard Bennet, Esq., Governor of Virginia: These.
SIR,
Whitehall, 12th January 1654.

Whereas the differences between the Lord Baltimore and the Inhabitants of Virginia, concerning the Bounds by them respectively claimed, are depending before our Council, and yet undetermined; and whereas we are credibly informed, you have notwithstanding gone into his

45 Penn's Narrative, in Thurloe, iv. 28. 47 Thurloe, i. 160 (11th March 1653-4).

Plantation in Maryland, and countenanced some people there in opposing the Lord Baltimore's Officers; whereby, and with other forces from Virginia, you have much disturbed that Colony and People, to the endangering of tumults and much bloodshed there, if not timely prevented:

We therefore, at the request of the Lord Baltimore, and 'of' divers other Persons of Quality here, who are engaged by great adventures in his interest, do, for preventing of disturbances or tumults there, will and require you, and all others deriving any authority from you, To forbear disturbing the Lord Baltimore, or his Officers or People in Maryland; and to permit all things to remain as they were before any disturbance or alteration made by you, or by any other upon pretence of authority from you, till the said Differences above mentioned be determined by us here, and we give farther order therein. We rest your loving friend, OLIVER P.*

Commissioners, it would appear, went out to settle the business; got it, we have no doubt, with due difficulty settled. See Letter CCIII.,-26th September 1655, To the Commis sioners of Maryland.'

LETTER CXCVII.

HERE again, while the Pedant Parliament keeps arguing and constitutioning, are discontents in the Army that threaten to develop themselves. Dangerous fermentings of Fifth-Monarchy and other bad ingredients, in the Army and out of it; encouraged by the Parliamentary height of temperature. Charles Stuart, on the word of a Christian King, is extensively bestirring himself. Royalist preparations, provisions of arms; Anabaptist Petitions: abroad and at home very dangerous designs on foot but we have our eye upon them.

* Thurloe, i. 724. The Signature only is Oliver's; signature, and sense. Thurloe has jotted on the back of this: 'A duplicate also hereof was writ, signed by his Highness.'

The Scotch Army seems, at present, the questionablest. The pay of the men is thirty weeks in arrear,' for one thing; the Anabaptist humour needs not that addition ! Colonel Alured, we saw, had to be dismissed the Service last year; Overton and others were questioned, and not dismissed. But now some desperate scheme has risen among the Forces in Scotland, of deposing General Monk, of making Republican Overton Commander,—and so marching off, all but the indispensable Garrison-troops, south into England, there to seek pay and other redress.1 This Parliament, now in its Fourth Month, supplies no money; nothing but constitutional debatings. My Lord Protector had need be watchful! He again, in this December, summons Overton from Scotland; again questions him ;-sees good, this time, to commit him to the Tower, and end his military services. The Army, in Scotland and elsewhere, with no settlement yet to its vague fermenting humours, and not even money to pay its arrears, is dangerous enough.

Of Adjutant-General Allen whom this Letter concerns, it may be proper to say that Ludlow in mentioning him has mistaken his man. The reader recollects, a good while ago, Three Troopers, notable at the moment, who appeared once before the Long Parliament, with a Petition from the Army, in the year Forty-seven? Their names were Allen, Sexby, Sheppard: Ludlow will have it, the Trooper Allen was this Adjutant-General Allen ;3 which is a mistake of Ludlow's. Trooper Sexby we did since see, as Captain Sexby, after Preston Fight; and shall again, in sad circumstances see: but of Trooper Allen there is no farther vestige anywhere except this imaginary one; of Trooper Sheppard not even an imaginary vestige. They have vanished, these two; and Adjutant-General Allen, vindicating his identity such as it is, enters here on his own footing. A resolute devout man, whom we have seen before; the same who was deep in the Prayer-Meeting at Windsor years ago: this is his third, and we hope his last appearance on the stage of things.

1 Postea, Speech IV.; and Thurloe, iii. 110, &c.

2 16th January 1654-5 (Overton's Letter, Thurloe, iii. 110).

3 Ludlow, i. 189: Edward Sexby,' 'William Allen; but in the name of the third Trooper, which is not 'Philips' but Sheppard, he is mistaken (Commons Journals, 30th April 1647); and as to Adjutant-General Allen' and the impossibility of his identity with this William Allen, see vol. i. pp. 236, 286.

4 Vol. i. p. 286.

Allen has been in Ireland, since that Prayer-Meeting; in Ireland and elsewhere, resolutely fighting, earnestly praying, as from of old; has had many darkenings of mind; expects, for almost a year past, 'little good from the Governments of this world,' one or the other. He has honoured, and still would fain honour, the Person now in chief place,' having seen in him much uprightheartedness to the Lord;' must confess, however, 'the late Change hath more stumbled me than any ever did ;' and, on the whole, knows not what he will resolve upon.5 We find he has resolved on quitting Ireland, for one thing; has come over to his Father-in-law Mr. Huish's in Devonshire :—and, to all appearance, is not building established-churches there! • Captain Unton Crook,' of whom we shall hear afterwards, is an active man, son of a learned Lawyer;6 very zealous for the Protector's interest;-zealous for his own and his Father's promotion, growls Ludlow. Desborow, who fitted-out the late mysterious Sea-Armament on the Southern Coast (not too judiciously, I doubt), is Commander-in-chief in those parts.

SIR,

For Captain Unton Crook, at Exeter: These?

Whitehall, 20th January 1654.

Being informed by a Letter of yours and General Desborow, also by a Letter from the High Sheriff of Devon, that Adjutant-General Allen doth very ill offices by multiplying dissatisfaction in the minds of men to the present Government, I desire you and the High Sheriff to make diligent inquiry after him, and try to make-out what can be made in this kind, and to give me speedy notice thereof. Not doubting of your care herein, I rest your loving friend, OLIVER P.

If he be gone out of the Country, learn whither he is gone, and send me word by next post.*

5 Two intercepted Letters of Allen's (Thurloe, ii. 214-5), 'Dublin, 6th April 1654. Made Sergeant Crook in 1655 (Heath, p. 693).

*Lansdowne MSS. 1236, fol. 102. Superscription torn off;-only the Signature is in Oliver's hand: Address supplied here by inference.