"And so after this, there was a second Treaty; and my Lord War wick desired my Father, To name what it was he demanded more; and to his utmost he would satisfy him. So my Father upon this made new propositions; which my Lord Warwick has answered as much as he can. But it seems there are Five-hundred pounds a year in my Lord Rich's hands; which he has power to sell: and there are some people, who persuade his Highness, that it would be dishonorable for him to conclude it unless these 5001. a year be settled upon Mr. Rich, after his father's death. And my Lord Rich having no esteem at all of his son, because he is not so bad as himself, will not agree to it; and these people upon this persuade my Father, That it would be a dishonor to him to yield upon these terms; it would show, that he was made a fool of by my Lord Rich. So the truth is, how it shall be, I cannot understand, nor very few else ;* and truly I must tell you privately, they are so far engaged, that the match cannot be broke off! She acquainted none of her friends with her resolution, when she did it. "Dear Brother, this is, as far as I can tell, the state of the business. The Lord direct them what to do. And all, I think, ought to beg of God to pardon her in her doing of this thing;-which I must say truly she was put upon by the 'course'† of things. Dear, let me beg my excuses to my Sister for not writing. My best respects to her. Pardon this trouble; and believe me that I shall ever strive to approve myself,dear Brother, your affectionate sister and servant, "MARY CROMWELL."‡ Poor little Fanny Cromwell was not yet much turned of Seven.een, when she had these complex things to do, with her friends, 'who truly were very few.' What 'people' they were that put, or strove to put, such notions into his Highness's head, with intent to frustrate the decidedly eligible Mr. Rich, none knows. I could suspect Ashley Cooper, or some such hand, if his date of favor still lasted. But it is gone, long months ago. Ashley is himself frustrated; cannot obtain this musical glib-tongued Lady Mary, says Ludlow ;§-goes over to opposition in consequence; is dis † Torn out. Thurloe, v., 146. * Good little Mary! Here is the passage, not hitherto printed; one of several suppressed passages from Ludlow's Memoirs,' which still exist in the handwriting of John Locke (now in the possession of Lord Lovelace), having been duly copied out by Locke for his own poor Life of the Earl of Shaftesbury, to whom they all relate : 'Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who was first for the King, then for the missed from his Highness's Council of State: and has to climb in this world by another ladder.-Poor Fanny's marriage did nevertheless take effect. Both Mary and she were duly wedded, Fanny to Rich, Mary to Lord Fauconberg, in November next year, within about a week of each other:* our friends,' who truly were very few,' and our destinies, and our own lively wits, brought all right in the end. LETTER CXLVIII. Ir was last Spring Assizes, as we saw, that the 'great appearances of country gentlemen and persons of the highest quality' took place; leading to the inference generally that this Protectorate Government is found worth acknowledging by England. Certainly a somewhat successful Government hitherto; in spite of difficulties great and many. It carries eternal Gospel in the one hand, temporal drawn Sword in the other. Actually it has compressed the turbulent humors of this Country, and encouraged the better tendencies thereof, hitherto; it has set its foot resolutely on the neck of English Anarchy, and points with its armed hand to noble onward and upward paths. All which, England, thank Parliament; then in Cromwell's first Assembly,' the Little Parliament, was 'for the reformation; and afterwards for Cromwell against the reformation. Now,' again, 'being denied Cromwell's Daughter Mary in marriage, he appears against Cromwell's design in the last Assembly,' the constitutioning Parliament, where his behavior was none of the best; and is therefore dismissed the Council, Cromwell being resolved to act there as the chief juggler himself; and one Colonel Mackworth, a Lawyer about Shrewsbury, a person fit for his purpose, is chosen in his room.'-Mackworth was a Soldier as well as Lawyer; the same who, as Governor of Shrewsbury, gave negative response to Charles Second, when he summoned him on the road to Worcester, once upon a time. Mackworth was in the Council, and had even died, and entirely left the Council, before Anthony Ashley left it (Thurloe, iii., 581; and Godwin, iv., 288). My solid friend, absent in Ireland, sulkily breathing the air in Essex, falls into some errors ! Courtrumor, this of his; truth in the heart of it, details rather vague; not much worth verifying or rectifying here. Antea, vol. i., 68. ful at lowest for peace and order, by degrees recognizes; with acquiescence, not without some slow satisfactory feeling. England is in peace at home; stands as the Queen of Protestantism abroad; defies Spain and Antichrist, protects poor Piedmont Protestants and servants of Christ ;-has taken, all men admit, a nobler attitude than it ever had before. Nor has the task been easy hitherto; nor is it like to be. No nolyday work, governing such an England as this of Oliver Protector's; with strong Papistry abroad, and a Hydra of Anarchies at home! The domestic Hydra is not slain; cannot, by the nature of it, be slain; can only be scotched and mowed down, head after head, as it successively protrudes itself;-till, by the aid of Time, it slowly die. As yet on any hint of foreign encouragement, it revives again, requires to be scotched and mowed down again. His exiled Majesty Charles Stuart has got a new lever in hand by means of this War with Spain. Seven years ago his exiled Majesty's 'Embassy to Spain,' embassy managed by Chancellor Hyde and another, proved rather a hungry affair and ended, I think, in little,-except the murder of poor Ascham, the then Parliament's Envoy at Madrid; whom, like Dutch Dorislaus, as 6 an accursed regicide or abetter of regicides,' certain cut-throat servants of the said hungry Embassy broke in upon, one afternoon, and slew. For which violent deed no full satisfaction could be got from Spain-the murderers having taken sanctuary,' as was pleaded.* With that rather sorry result, and no other noticeable, Chancellor Hyde's Embassy took itself away again; Spain ordering it to go. But now, this fierce Protestant Protector breathing nothing but war, Spain finds that the English domestic Hydra, if well operated upon by Charles Stuart, might be a useful thing; and grants Charles Stuart some encouragements for that. His poor Majesty is coming to the seashore again; is to have 'Seven-thousand Spaniards' to invade England, if the domestic Hydra will stir with effect. The domestic Hydra, I think, had better lie quiet for a while! This Letter to Henry Cromwell is to bid him too, for his part, be awake n Ireland to these things. * Clarendon, iii., 498-509; Process and Pleadings in the Court of Spain upon the death of Anthony Ascham (in Hart, Miscell., vi., 236-47). For the Hydra is not dead; and its heads are Legion. Major Wildman, for example, sits safe in Chepstow: but Sexby, the Anabaptist Colonel, whom we could not take on that occasion, is still busy; has been trying to seduce the Fleet,' trying to do this and that; is now fairly gone to Spain, to treat with Antichrist himself for the purpose of bringing-in a Reign of Christ, the truly desperate Anabaptist Colonel !* It is a Hydra like few. Spiritual and Practical: Muggletonians, mad Quakers riding into Bristol, Fifth-Monarchists, Hungry Flunkeys: ever scheming, plotting with or without hope, to seduce the Protector's Guard,' 'to blow up the Protector in his bed-room,' and do "other little fiddling things," as the Protector calls them,-which one cannot waste time in specifying! Only the slow course of Nature can kill that Hydra: till a Colonel Sexby die, how can you keep him quiet ?— But what doubtless gives new vitality to plotting in these weeks, is the fact that a General Election to Parliament is going on. There is to be a new Parliament;-in which may lie who knows what contentions. The Protector lost it last time, by the arithmetical account of heads; will he gain it this time? Account of heads is not exactly the Protector's basis; but he hopes he may now gain it even so. At all events, this wide foreign and domestic Spanish War cannot be carried on without supplies; he will first try it so, then otherwise if not so. 'To Henry Cromwell, Major-General of the Army in Ireland.' SON HARRY, 'Whitehall,' 26th August, 1656. We are informed, from several hands, that the old Enemy are forming designs to invade Ireland, as well as other parts of the Commonwealth; and that he and Spain have very great correspondence with some chief men in that Nation, for raising a sudden rebellion there. Therefore we judge it very necessary that you take all possible care to put the Forces into such a condition as may answer anything that may fall out in this kind. And to that end, that you contract the Garrisons in Ireland, as many as may be; and get a considerable marching Army into the field, in two or three bodies, to be left in the most proper and advantageous places for service, as occasion shall require. Taking also, * Clarendon, iii., 852; Thurloe, iv., 698, &c in all other things, your best care you can to break and prevent the designs and combinations of the Enemy ;-and a very particular regard is to be had to the North, where, without question, busy and discontented persons are working towards new disturbances. I do not doubt but you will communicate this thing to Colonel Cowper, to the end he may be more watchful and diligent in looking to this danger, I rest, Your loving father, OLIVER CROMWELL.* 'Colonel Cowper' commands the Forces in Ulster. Plenty of details about him in Thurloe's Fourth Volume :-our readers can sufficiently conceive him without details. We are more interested to state, from a Letter of Thurloe's which goes along with this, that there are "Fourteen Spanish ships plying about the Isle of Islay,' doubtless with an eye to Carrickfergus; that we hope, and indeed believe, my Lord Henry will be on the alert. For the rest, the elections are going well; all' for peace and settlement,' as we hear, 'and great friends to the Government.' Ashley Cooper, indeed, has been chosen for Wilts; but, on the other hand, Bradshaw has missed in Cheshire; Sir Henry Vane has tried in three places and missed in all. This is of date 26th August, 1656; poor England universally sifting itself; trying what the arithmetical account of heads will do for it, once more. About a fortnight ago, August 13th, learned Bulstrode went with the Swedish Ambassador to dine with a famed Sea-General, Sir George Ayscough; who lives for the present, retired from service, at his House in Surrey ;' House not known to me; which by the aid of 'ponds, moats,' and hydraulic contrivances, he has made to stand environed in water like a ship at sea,'-very charming indeed; and says he has 'cast anchor' here. Our entertainment was superb. The brilliant Swedish Ambassador and Sir George spake much about frigates, their rates of sailing, their capabilities of fighting, and other technical topics; which a learned man might without much tedium listen to. ‹ After dinner, tae Ambassador came round by Hampton Court, to take his leave * Sloane мss., 4157, f. 209; and (with insignificant variations) Thurloe, ., 348. †Thurloe to Henry Cromwell, date 26 Aug. (v., 349.) |
