the other by its essential dependence on the individual life on whose existence it had been staked. When, therefore, the death of Oliver had once more dispossessed the country of its established Government, three distinct and antagonistic forms of polity had passed away within a period of ten years. The alternative, consequently, which presented itself to the people of England, on the recurrence of that momentous event, lay between the restoration of the Monarchy under the House of Stuart, with such qualifications as should seem to establish, what we now term, a Constitutional Government, and the attempted consolidation of those shreds and remnants of discordant systems, which represented the ruin of preceding schemes of polity. But the genius of the people, in favour of the restoration, was not sufficiently determined to countervail the adverse influence of individuals in power; and the latter alternative formed the only practicable means of filling the political vacuum, which the death of the Protector had produced.

Four distinct elements of Government, more or less feeble and inadequate, now remained on the antimonarchical side of political affairs. These were, first, the traditions of the Protectorate, as faintly represented at once by the family of Cromwell, and by the rival generals of the Commonwealth secondly, the bias of the army as generally disposed in favour of some scheme of republican polity: thirdly, the questionable claims of the half-extinguished Long Parliament: and, fourthly, the undeniable pretensions of a nominally republican Commonwealth, to the investiture of the powers of Government in a free, a full, and a sovereign National Assembly.

Each of these four principles, or elements of Government, was existing on the death of Oliver Cromwell, either in law or in fact that is to

say, they were either already developed into a definite shape, or they were morally existing in virtue of popular convictions of their respective claims. Each, again, of these elements was, singly, too weak to assume the ascendant-each conflicted with the other and was not seldom divided against itself. For, in truth, no one of them was possessed of any consistent and homogeneous character.

The claims of the sons of Cromwell to individual supremacy were morally, if not actually, contested by such generals as Monk, and Desborough, and Fairfax, and Lambert. The Long Parliament was no sooner convened than it tranformed itself from a body of popular representatives into a rapacious oligarchy, and exhibited the spectacle of a minority of its members ejecting a majority from a participation in its deliberative counsels. The army itself represented or professed opposite political opinions as numerous as the cantonments into which it was distributed. And a free National Assembly, such as we have indicated, would probably, if it had been elected in the autumn of 1658, have presented a scarcely less signal discord on the question of the Constitution of the Empire.

The restoration of the Monarchy in 1658, being, therefore, at that moment, essentially, a utopian scheme, the immediate future of England, at the juncture of the death of Cromwell, obviously lay between the extreme alternatives of a vigorous administration and a series of revolutions. With all these conflicting forces of moral government in the field, it ought clearly to have been the policy of those in power, to have aimed at the fusion and combination of these conflicting elements, as far as possible, into one homogeneous body. Such a course, no doubt, was fraught with the utmost difficulty, and required the presence of a master-mind such as had just departed from the scene of public affairs. And, indeed, it may be questioned whether there is not indirect evidence to show, that even Oliver himself despaired of its complete realisation; for it may be fairly supposed, that he would have preferred to live in greater security at the expense of some qualification of his authority, if he had seen his way to the institution of a less despotic frame of polity, of which he should be the permanent head. But that these conflicting elements of power, at the juncture of the death of Oliver, were not wholly irreconcilable or invincible, is strikingly shown in the manner in which accidental circumstances had nearly established a triple form of Government-and would probably have done so, but for the pusillanimity of Richard-when the first Cabal of

Wallingford House destroyed that conservative scheme of polity. So wholly incompetent, however, with the exception of Thurloe, were the public men who then occupied positions in the State, to the accomplishment of the task which lay before them, that the progress of England, which had so lately been courted and feared by all the nations of Europe, presented simply a gradual decline from revolution to revolution, until the restoration of the Monarchy became, at length, the sole condition of her political existence.

M. Guizot has, we think, rightly estimated the importance of this most eventful of all the epochs of corresponding duration in the History of England, which in the space of less than two years, transformed the Civil Government of the nation from a military dictatorship, unequalled in its vigour and strength, to a limited or constitutional monarchy, conformable to the genius of its ancient polity. This epoch is, singularly, one which has been neglected by almost every historical writer who has dealt with that period of the English annals. Hume has devoted to it no more than

about forty pages. Mr. Macaulay describes it in a manner at once contemptuous aud laconic. Mr. Carlyle does not condescend to deal with it at all; and he chooses that the curtain shall fall over the name of Cromwell, while yet in the zenith of its glory. It is, perhaps, a peculiar merit in M. Guizot's work, that the vivid representations which it forms of this exciting, yet degrading, drama, is deduced fully from the mass of records, the greater portion of which have been before the public, for at least a century and a half, and which no earlier writer has had the energy to collate; and partly from diplomatic correspondence, which, with few exceptions, had not before been given to the world.

M. Guizot, Mr. Macaulay, and Mr. Hume nearly agree in their respective characterisations of Richard Cromwell, so far as intellectual administrative powers are concerned. But while Hume represents him as at once virtuous in private and incompetent in public life, M. Guizot brings him before us in the character of "an idle, jovial, and somewhat licentious country squire." It is a strange accusation

to prefer against David Hume, that he has dealt too leniently with a supplanter of the House of Stuart. But there is clearly no question whatever, that Richard Cromwell, in his earlier life, had contracted the manners, while he lived in the society, of the cavaliers whom the great Protector had permitted to live in security around him. This, in fact, must have been an almost inevitable result; and it affords, perhaps, the most striking instance on record of the impolitic supineness of the watchful Oliver, who had been designing the hereditary descent of the power he had attainai, that instead of bringing up his chosen son either to the profession of the army, or to the duties of govern ment, and without so much as caring to instil into his mind the Cromwellian politics on the recognition of which his existence depended-be allowed him to run riot among the discontented cavaliers, until he ap pears to have contracted their opin ions in an equal degree with those of his father. The result, at any rate, was, that immediately on the occur. ence of an administrative difficulty under the Protectorate of Richard, the first expedient suggested by that ruler was the recall of the House of Stuart.

Both at home and abroad Richard's unopposed accession to the Protecto rate created very general surprise. The intelligence of the death of Oliver, intimately as the Anglo-French alliance of that day hung on his individual life, threw the Court of Versailles into consternation. The letters, and other authoritative documents, quoted by M. Guizot, strikingly evince the difficulty in which Cardinal Mazarin, then the nearly absolute dictator of France, found himself placed. That Minister, afraid to avow himself posi tively upon either side, proceeded to a congratulation of all parties interested in the result, with the wonted duplicity of his profession. This, in fact, appears to have been the invariable expedient of the French Court whenever they found themselves beset by rival claimants for their support, whose ultimate success it might at the moment be impossible to predicate. In this manner the letters of M. de Bordeaux, the French Ambassador at the court of the English Commonwealth, addressed to the Car

dinal, frequently conclude in such terms as these :-" meanwhile, as I do not know on which side success may declare, I shall continue to speak fair words to all!"

In illustration of this policy, we quote nearly the only letter addressed by Mazarin to Richard Cromwell :

CARDINAL MAZARIN TO THE PROTECTOR

(RICHARD CROMWELL.)

Paris, Sept. 25th, 1658.

"SIR, I have so many reasons for being sensibly affected by the death of his late most serene highness, the Protector, that I shall not employ many words to express to your most serene highness the grief which it has caused me, which I well feel to be one of those which are contained (?) in sad silence, because they are beyond expression. And truly, even, if I did not regard the interest of the king and of the state in the loss of a prince so illustrious and so well intentioned towards this crown, he gave me, even in the last moments of his life, such obliging and such glorious marks of esteem, confidence, and friendship, that I cannot sufficiently regret his loss. But what mitigates in some degree my displeasure (!) at this unfortunate occurrence, is to find that your most serene highness has been proclaimed his successor with such universal applause; and that I am fully persuaded that not only will you conform to his views, for the establishment of an indissoluble union with France, but that you will be pleased to honor me with the same good-will which his highness entertained towards me, as I have a very strong desire to deserve it by my services."

And was this the only letter of sympathy and congratulation written by Cardinal Mazarin ? No. He simultaneously sent his felicitations on this event to Queen Henrietta Maria, the exiled widow of Charles I! This duplicity did not end here. The Lord Cardinal, indeed, did not put the respective letters, like a more modern diplomatist of this country,into the wrong envelopes; but he found himself compelled to offend one party, or the other on the delicate question of placing the Court in mourning for the Protector. The Cromwells would be peculiarly susceptible of a slight and the Stuarts would be similarly incensed by such an apotheosis of the deceased usurper. But at length the wily Cardinal came to the conclusion -to paraphrase the proverb-that a Protector in the hand was worth two Queens in the bush and Louis XIV. accordingly went into mourn

ing for the deceased executioner of Charles I.!

This liberal determination of Cardinal Mazarin, in fact, to ally the French court rather with nations than with governments-which is the exact antecedent of our policy in regard to France at this day-affords a signal contrast to the subsequent maladministration of Louis XIV., when that sovereign had undertaken the individual responsibility of government. In a word, it was the policy of the Great Minister to regard the nation as identified with the de facto government: it was the policy of the Grand Monarque to regard the dynasty as constituting the State.

Richard Cromwell now suddenly found himself elevated from the debauchery and obscurity of his provincial life, to the highest pinnacle of political authority. For the moment, his rivals readily acceded to his assumption of the Protectoral power. His brother, Henry, consented to rule Ireland as his deputy, and assured him of the tranquillity of that important nation. Monk, who was then all-powerful in Scotland, similarly acquiesed in the authority of Richard; and Fleetwood, who had been long the presumptive successor of the great Protector, adopted the same course. "And was this," it was demanded by the astonished courts of Europe, "the tranquil manner in which England received an event which had threatened to involve her in a tempest of unquenchable revolution ?"

But behind all this temporary and temporising subserviency, the storm was gradually and secretly arising. The first indication of danger came from the suspicious withdrawal of the leading officers from the court of the young Protector. Wallingford House, where Fleetwood lived, became the scene of suspicious military councils. Desborough followed Fleetwood's example.

While one assembly was convened at Wallingford House, another sat at Desborough's. Meanwhile the executive government was carried on at Whitehall, ostensibly by a council of state constituted on a liberal basis, and composed both of Cromwellians and Republicans; but virtually by a small committee of that council, known as the Palace Cabal. Of this, Thurloe was the chief.

Thurloe was Prime Minister of Richard and became, through the weakness of his master, the real director of the state. He was the leading civilian, much as Fleetwood was the leading general, then in London. Between these two rivals, an inevitable animosity sprang up. Scarcely had the accession of Richard taken place, when this formidable antagonism developed itself in a demand from the council of Wallingford House, that the office of commander-in-chief "should be restored in the person of a military man who had served in the wars of Oliver; and that no officers should be dismissed except by the sentence of a court-martial."

Here was not only a direct blow aimed at the supremacy of Richard, but a covert attempt to renew the military dictatorship of Oliver in the person of Fleetwood, who was unmistakably designed in a demand thus emanating from a council assembled at his own residence. The illusion of conservative order, as the characteristic of the reign of Richard, vanished at once. Here was a council of state assembled at Whitehall under the Protector, forming the only government of the country;-and here, again, not a stone's throw from the seat of the legal administration, was a self-existent military council, unrecognised by any other body than itself, and determined on the destruction of the rival court! Nothing can more fully illustrate the moral alienation of the public from the idea of order, and of the dignity of government, than the fact that these demonstrations were received by the public, with every symptom of complacency and indifference. In truth, if we were to endeavour to draw a parallel to the government of England, during the last period of the commonwealth, in the history of our own times, we could find it only at Madrid.

The council at Whitehall promptly took up the gauntlet thrown down by the council of Wallingford House; and Richard returned to the demand a flat refusal. This refusal was drawn up by Thurloe, and is to be found in the State Papers, bearing his name. There is reason, indeed, to think that this promptitude on the part of the legal executive was produced by a further knowledge of the ambitious projects of Fleetwood, than

any that has hitherto come to light; for Desborough, at this juncture, charged Lord Faulconbridge, who was Cromwell's brother-in-law, with a design for the imprisonment of Fleetwood in Windsor Castle. This is also attested in Thurloe's state papers; and it suggests a probability that Richard may have been scheming violent measures for the suppression of the Wallingford House Cabal, with that occasional vigour which charac terised his early administration, but which afterwards altogether failed him in the hour of his direst neces sity.

Richard and his advisers now saw that the only course before them lay in the convocation of parliament. It was absolutely necessary that some further sanction should be given to the existence of the government of Whitehall, in order to withstand the cabals of the army. The sanction which parliament might confer would be both of a moral and of a legal character. It would be difficult, on the one hand, for the officers to debauch into rebellion against parlia mentary government an army which had already fought the domestic wars of political liberty. The increase of authority, on the other, which a de facto administration, would possess by its formal inauguration with all the solemnity that an appeal to the nation could confer, would be incalculably great. The only difficulty, in truth, consisted in the return of a parliament which should support the Protectoral polity. The council of state durst not encounter a free parliament chosen after the recent electoral law. With a suppleness, however, for which Thurloe has seldom gained credit, but which he really possessed, these difficulties were overcome. The repre sentation was fraudulently contracted; and the executive gained the general support of the cavaliers, on the supposition, which it by no attempted to dispel, of its favourable disposition to the royal cause.

means

This parliament was summoned for January, 1659, Oliver having died so recently as the previous September. But there was another urgent motive for its assembly. The treasury was empty, and the government well nigh bankrupt. Richard, with a paltry ostentation in the circumstances of the nation, had expended sixty thou

sand pounds on his father's funerala sum infinitely larger, if we consider either the relative value of money or the actual revenues of the state, than what was recently voted to defray that of the Duke of Wellington. Meanwhile the army was starving. This extravagance embarrassed and beggared the pious son of the great Oliver, to the last day of his Protectoral life.

Parliament assembled; and a motley convention it presented. The 'state of parties,' the great political theme of that hour, forms an instructive lesson at this day. The House of Commons was split into three principal divisions; much as it is split, at the present hour, into the three principal parties of the Tories, the Whigs, and the Radicals. These were, of course, the Royalists, the Cromwellians, and the Republicans. The positions assumed by the former and the latter were clear and logical. The one asserted the essential sovereignty of the exiled dynasty-the other that of the people. But the Cromwellian theory of government was altogether unintelligible. It asserted the superior, or antecedent, right of the Protectorate over parliament; and it illustrated its position by applying to this parliament to institute and ratify that Protectoral power! The position of the Cromwellian, or Ministerial, party in the House, was similar to that of the Whigs on the treasury bench at this day. Beset alternately by either extreme of political opposition, they appealed first to the Republicans with the cry-'Save us from the Royalists who will bring in the king' --and next to the same Royalists in turn-Defend us from the Republicans who will render all government impossible.'

The Parliamentary tactics of a Government encompassed by these difficulties, were characterised by a skill of which we find no example until we reach the constitutional age of George I. They are well worthy of investigation, too, as affording the first instance that occurs in the Parliamentary History of England of a system of balancing the hostility of conflicting parties, analogous to that which has been more prominently introduced by successive leaders of the House of Commous, since the period

of the Reform Act. We may refer, indeed, to the same general and obvious cause, the dominance of the Whig party from that epoch until now, and the dominance of the Cromwellians in the Parliament of January, 1659. Either event introduced a third party into the House: and between the two extreme parties of each period, the Whigs in the one, and the Cromwellians in the other, occupied the mean. It is strange, indeed, that living historians should have so generally passed over the records of a period, which seems to form the archetype of our present Parliamentary tactics.

The conflict was a short one; and it afforded a decisive victory to the Protectoral party. The constitutional scheme of Thurloe was of a masterly character; and it brought Richard Cromwell far nearer the attainment of regal and hereditary power than his father, with all his splendid talents, had ever approached to. It was the aim of Thurloe to establish two separate Houses, in subordination to a Protectorate. The House of Peers was to be re-formed: it was to consist of all those nobles who would swear fealty to the Commonwealth; and who therefore, for the restoration of their rights, would, it was thought, readily abandon their lawful sovereign, and acknowledge the supremacy of Richard. Extended grants of land, alienated from the disaffected to these nobles, would be alone wanting to render the Cromwellian aristocracy influential in the country. One additional step alone would then be requisite to change the name of Protector into that of King.

On the 1st of February, 1659, Thurloe introduced his bill, and carried, subject to an amendment imposing some restriction on the Executive powers, a vote recognising Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. The Minister then triumphantly introduced his second measure, establishing the two Houses. It was vehemently contested by the Republicans. In spite, however, of their opposition this measure carried also. But the Republicans succeeded in establishing this state of things as a Constitution emanating from the Assembly, and not as a merely formal recognition of an existing system. Thurloe had endeavoured

was