DEATH OF CROMWELL.

303

to their lawful sovereign; the clergy driven from their homes and scattered throughout the country in beggary and misery; and the beautiful churches and cathedrals, in many cases, either wholly destroyed or turned into stables for his troops. Cromwell is an awful example of the distracting terrors of a guilty conscience. His constitution broke down beneath the terrible struggle of his mind; and he died on the anniversary of his victory over the royalists at Worcester, September 3, 1658, a worn-out old man, at the age of fifty-nine. He was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.

Richard Cromwell, his son, was chosen protector in his stead; but he had neither the talents nor the ambition of his father, and very soon resigned his power, and retired into private life at Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire. Henry also resigned his high office in Ireland, and, like his brother, passed the remainder of his life in retirement, and much respected for his upright character.

For a time there was great confusion throughout the country. No one knew what was best to be done. At length general Monk, who commanded the army in Scotland, assembled together the remains of the Long Parliament; these soon summoned another par

liament, in which the restoration of the king was proposed and at once agreed upon. A deputation was sent to Breda, in the Netherlands, to invite him to return; and on his birthday, May 29, 1660, Charles entered London in triumph, greeted by shouts of welcome, and such transports of joy that he said, laughing, “It must have been my own fault that I did not come back before, since every one tells me that he desired my restoration."

A very great poet lived in the time of the Commonwealth-Milton, the author of "Paradise Lost," and other poems. He was Latin Secretary to Cromwell, and wrote also several political prose works, which are not, however, to be compared with his poetry. When he composed "Paradise Lost” he had become perfectly blind, and was accustomed to recite the poem as he proceeded with it, to one of his two daughters, who dearly loved their father, and took pleasure in writing down, from his dictation, the noblest uninspired poem which has ever sprung from human genius, under the influence of Christian principles.

When Aunt Anne has added that air-pumps and speaking-trumpets were invented in the time of Cromwell, she has told her young readers all that her memory had retained of the deeds of the Common

wealth; and she cannot help adding a prayer that God may, of His infinite mercy, preserve this land in future from rebellion and conspiracy, from foreign enemies and domestic disturbances; that we His people, and the sheep of His pasture, may give Him thanks for ever, and show forth His praise from generation to generation, through Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and Redeemer.

CHAPTER XXXI.

CHARLES THE SECOND-FROM 1660 To 1685.

CHARLES began his reign by causing the men who had brought about his father's death to be tried. A few of the leaders were executed, and others sent into banishment, but the rest were pardoned. But if unwilling to show severity to his enemies, he was also very indifferent about rewarding those who had been faithful to him, and lost their fortunes in his cause, but whom he now, with but few exceptions, treated with total neglect. Charles was one of those who grow no wiser by experience; and it is generally observed that those who are not improved by adversity are made the worse by it. Brought up by his mother, and having lived much in countries professing the Romish religion, he was a papist at heart, although he was afraid to acknowledge it openly, as his brother James, duke of York, did. To all really spiritual religion, which He who looks at the heart can alone approve, he was an entire stranger, as well as to the most ordinary principles of honour and virtue. He

VICES OF CHARLES.

307

was not deficient in talent, and was noted for his wit and easy grace of manner, so that he obtained the title of "the merry monarch ;" and his people were at first misled by his pleasant manners to give him credit for better qualities than experience proved him to possess. In fact he was utterly selfish, unprincipled, and careless of the real welfare of his kingdom; and from the first abandoned himself to the most vicious indulgences and the wildest pursuits of pleasure that ever disgraced a monarch of this country. A sad return to make to that God who had so mercifully led and delivered him from the power of his enemies when he fled before them.

Aunt Anne would gladly pass over this wicked man's reign altogether; but that it is necessary her young friends should become in some degree acquainted with the causes which led to the just expulsion of the Stuart family from the throne, and the firm establishment of the Protestant succession in the house of Hanover, which has led to so much of peace and prosperity in our days.

One of the first acts of this reign was the restoration to their sees and livings of the bishops and clergy, who had been deprived of them during the late troubles; but this, a right measure in itself, was