days ago' was true, That there are preparations of force to invade us. God is my witness, it hath been confirmed to me since, not a day ago, That the King of Scots hath an Army at the water's side, ready to be shipped for England. I have it from those who have been eyewitnesses of it. And while it is doing, there are endeavours from some who are not far from this place, to stir-up the people of this Town into a tumulting-[City Petitions are mounting very high,―as perhaps Sir Arthur and others know!]—what if I said, Into a rebellion! And I hope I shall make it appear to be no better, if God assist me. [Noble scorn and indignation is gradually getting the better of every other feeling in his Highness and us.]

It hath been not only your endeavour to pervert the Army while you have been sitting, and to draw them to state the question about a "Commonwealth;" but some of you have been listing of persons, by commission of Charles Stuart, to join with any Insurrection that may be made. [What a cold qualm in some conscious heart that listens to this! Let him tremble, every joint of him;-or not visibly tremble; but cower home to his place, and repent; and remember in whose hand his beggarly existence in this world lies!] And what is like to come upon this, the Enemy being ready to invade us, but even present blood and confusion?-[The next and final Sentence is partly on fire]-And if this be so, I do assign 'it' to this cause: Your not assenting to what you did invite me to by your Petition and Advice, as that which might prove the Settlement of the Nation. And if this be the end of your sitting, and this be your carriage -[Sentence now all beautifully blazing], I think it high time that an end be put to your sitting. And I DO DISSOLVE THIS PARLIAMENT! And let God be judge between you and me:*

Burton, ii. 465-70.

Figure the looks of Haselrig, Scott and Company! 'The • Mace was clapt under a cloak; the Speaker withdrew, and ' exit Parliamentum,' the Talking-Apparatus vanishes.38 "God be judge between you and me !”—“ Amen !" answered they, 39 thought they, indignantly; and sank into eternal silence. It was high time; for in truth the Hydra, on every side, is stirring its thousand heads. “Believe me,” says Samuel Hartlib, Milton's friend, writing to an Official acquaintance next week, "believe me, it was of such necessity, that if their Ses"sion had continued but two or three days longer, all had been "in blood both in City and Country, upon Charles Stuart's ac"count."40

His Highness, before this Monday's sun sets, has begun to lodge the Anarchic Ringleaders, Royalist, Fifth-Monarchist, in the Tower; his Highness is bent once more with all his faculty, the Talking-Apparatus being gone, to front this Hydra, and trample it down once again.41 On Saturday he summons his Officers, his Acting-Apparatus, to Whitehall round him; explains to them 'in a Speech two hours long' what kind of Hydra it is; asks, Shall it conquer us, involve us in blood and confusion? They answer from their hearts, No, it shall not! "We will stand and fall with your Highness, we will live and die with you!"42_It is the last duel this Oliver has with any Hydra fomented into life by a Talking-Apparatus; and he again conquers it, invincibly compresses it, as he has heretofore done.

One day, in the early days of March next, his Highness said to Lord Broghil: An old friend of yours is in Town, the Duke of Ormond, now lodged in Drury Lane, at the Papist Surgeon's there: you had better tell him to be gone !43 Whereat his Lordship stared; found it a fact, however; and his Grace of Ormond did go with exemplary speed, and got again to Bruges and the Sacred Majesty, with report That Cromwell had many enemies, but that the rise of the Royalists was moonshine. And on the 12th of the month his Highness had the Mayor and Common Council with him in a body at Whitehall; and 'in a Speech at large' explained to them that

38 Burton, ii. 464.

33 Tradition in various modern Books (Parliamentary History, xxi. 203; Note to Burton, ii. 470); not supported, that I can find, by any contemporary witness. 40 Hartlib in London (11th Feb. 1657-8) to Moreland at Geneva; printed in Parliamentary History, xxi. 205.

41 Appendix, No. 31.

42 Hartlib's Letter, ubi supra.

43 Godwin, iv. 508; Budgel's Lives of the Boyles, p. 49; &c.

his Grace of Ormond was gone only on Tuesday last;' that there were Spanish Invasions, Royalist Insurrections and FranticAnabaptist Insurrections rapidly ripening;—that it would well beseem the City of London to have its Militia in good order. To which the Mayor and Common Council, 'being very sensible thereof,' made zealous response44 by speech and by act. In a word, the Talking-Apparatus being gone, and an Oliver Protector now at the head of the Acting-Apparatus, no Insurrection, in the eyes of reasonable persons, had any chance. The leading Royalists shrank close into their privacies again,—considerable numbers of them had to shrink into durance in the Tower. Among which latter class, his Highness, justly incensed, and considering,' as Thurloe says, 'that it was not fit there should be a Plot of this kind every winter,' had determined that a High Court of Justice should take cognisance of some. High Court of Justice is accordingly nominated+5 as the Act of Parliament prescribes: among the parties marked for trial by it are Sir Henry Slingsby, long since prisoner for Penruddock's business, and the Reverend Dr. Hewit, a man of much forwardness in Royalism. Sir Henry, prisoner in Hull and acquainted with the Chief Officers there, has been treating with them for betrayal of the place to his Majesty; has even, to that end, given one of them a Majesty's commission; for whose Spanish Invasion such a Haven and Fortress would have been extremely convenient. Reverend Dr. Hewit, preaching by sufferance, according to the old ritual, 'in St. Gregory's Church near Paul's,' to a select disaffected audience, has farther seen good to distinguish himself very much by secular zeal in this business of the Royalist Insurrection and Spanish Charles-Stuart Invasion ;— which has now come to nothing, and left poor Dr. Hewit in a most questionable position. Of these two, and of others, a High Court of Justice shall take cognisance.

The Insurrection having no chance in the eyes of reasonable Royalists, and they in consequence refusing to lead it, the large body of unreasonable Royalists now in London City or gathering thither decide, with indignation, That they will try it on their own score, and lead it themselves. Hands to work, then, ye unreasonable Royalists; pipe, All hands! Saturday

44 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 171).

45 27th April 1658. Act of Parliament, with List of the Names, is in Scobell, ii. 372-5: see also Commons Journals, vii. 427 (Sept. 1656).

the 15th of May, that is the night appointed: To rise that Saturday night; beat drums for 'Royalist Apprentices,' 'fire houses at the Tower,' slay this man, slay that, and bring matters to a good issue. Alas, on the very edge of the appointed hour, as usual, we are all seized; the ringleaders of us are all seized, ' at the Mermaid in Cheapside,'-for Thurloe and his Highness have long known what we were upon! Barkstead Governor of the Tower marches into the City with five drakes,' at the rattle of which every Royalist Apprentice, and party implicated, shakes in his shoes—and this also has gone to vapour, leaving only for result certain new individuals of the Civic class to give account of it to the High Court of Justice.

Tuesday 25th May 1658, the High Court of Justice sat; a formidable Sanhedrim of above a Hundred-and-thirty heads, consisting of all the Judges,' chief Law Officials, and others named in the Writ according to Act of Parliament ;—sat ‘in Westminster Hall, at Nine in the morning, for the Trial of Sir Henry Slingsby Knight, John Hewit Doctor of Divinity,' and three others whom we may forget.46 Sat day after day till all were judged. Poor Sir Henry, on the first day, was condemned; he pleaded what he could, poor gentleman, a very constant Royalist all along; but the Hull business was too palpable; he was condemned to die. Reverend Dr. Hewit, whose proceedings also had become very palpable, refused to plead at all; refused even to take off his hat,' says Carrion Heath, till the officer was coming to do it for him :' had a Paper of Demurrers prepared by the learned Mr. Prynne,' who is now again doing business this way ;—' conducted himself not very wisely,' says Bulstrode. He likewise received sentence of death. The others, by narrow missing, escaped; by good luck, or the Protector's mercy, suffered nothing.

As to Slingsby and Hewit the Protector was inexorable. Hewit has already taken a very high line: let him persevere in it! Slingsby was the Lord Fauconberg's Uncle, married to his Aunt Bellasis; but that could not stead him,—perhaps that was but a new monition to be strict with him. The Commonwealth of England and its Peace are not nothing! These Royalist Plots every winter, deliveries of garrisons to Charles Stuart, and reckless usherings of us into blood,' shall end! Hewit and Slingsby suffered on Tower Hill, on Monday 8th 46 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 172),

Of

June; amid the manifold rumour and emotion of men. the City Insurrectionists six were condemned; three of whom were executed, three pardoned. And so the High Court of Justice dissolved itself; and at this and not at more expense of blood, the huge Insurrectionary movement ended, and lay silent within its caves again.

Whether in any future year it would have tried another rising against such a Lord Protector, one does not know,-one guesses rather in the negative. The Royalist Cause, after so many failures, after such a sort of enterprises' on the word of a Christian King,' had naturally sunk very low. Some twelvemonth hence, with a Commonwealth not now under Cromwell, but only under the impulse of Cromwell, a Christian King hastening down to the Treaty of the Pyrenees, where France and Spain were making Peace, found one of the coldest receptions. Cardinal Mazarin 'sent his coaches and guards 'a day's journey to meet Lockhart the Commonwealth Ambas'sador;' but refused to meet the Christian King at all; would not even meet Ormond except as if by accident, 'on the public road,' to say that there was no hope. The Spanish Minister, Don Luis de Haro, was civiller in manner; but as to Spanish Charles-Stuart Invasions or the like, he also decisively shook his head.47 The Royalist Cause was as good as desperate in England; a melancholy Reminiscence, fast fading away into the realm of shadows. Not till Puritanism sank of its own accord, could Royalism rise again. But Puritanism, the King of it once away, fell loose very naturally in every fibre,-fell into Kinglessness, what we call Anarchy; crumbled down, ever faster, for Sixteen Months, in mad suicide, and universal clashing and collision; proved, by trial after trial, that there lay not in it either Government or so much as Self-government any more; that a Government of England by it was henceforth an impossibility. Amid the general wreck of things, all Government threatening now to be impossible, the Reminiscence of Royalty rose again, “Let us take refuge in the Past, the Future is not possible !"—and Major-General Monk crossed the Tweed at Coldstream, with results which are well known.

Results which we will not quarrel with, very mournful as they have been! If it please Heaven, these Two-hundred Years of universal Cant in Speech, with so much of Cotton47 Kennet, iii. 214: Clarendon, iii. 914.