1658 She Lady Elizabeth my heart, indeed it did."* In 1654, he lost his mother, Elizabeth Stuart, a woman of great sense and virtue, for whom he never ceased to entertain and manifest the utmost respect. In 1658, death entered his house with unusual severity. Three months after her marriage, his daughter Frances lost her husband, and she became a widow at the early age of seventeen; three months later, the Earl of Warwick, Cromwell's most intimate friend among the nobility, and who had served him with true devotion, died; and, ere many weeks had passed, he had to endure the heaviest blow of all. His beloved daughter, Lady Claypole, had long been weak and invalid; and he had sent her to reside at Hampton Court, for the benefit of country air and complete tranquillity. Finding her illness increase, he went to reside there himself, that he might Death of watch over her with tender and constant care. possessed great and peculiar attractions; being a person of noble and delicate sentiments, of an elegant and cultivated mind, faithful to her friends, generous to her enemies, and tenderly attached to her father, of whom she felt at once proud and anxious, and who, in his turn, rejoiced greatly in her deep affection. Unable to attend to any public business whatever, Cromwell watched by her bedside constantly for the last fourteen days of her life, and had need of all his self-control to endure the painful impressions which her cruel sufferings made upon his mind. What took place when they were thus alone, and what was the subject of their private conversation, was never exposed to the profane ears of strangers; yet Clarendon, Bulstrode, Heath, and other Royalist writers, have presumed to report that she upbraided her father with his crimes, and predicted the bloody vengeance which would fall upon his house. This, and numberless other fictions of a like nature, invented "after the Restoration, we may now consign to their natural resting-place oblivion. On the 6th of August Lady Claypole died; and she was interred in Henry the Seventh's chapel, among the tombs of the kings.† 34. The Protector's sickness and death. The Protector soon followed his beloved daughter. His health had been very uncertain of late; indeed, his course of life never had been favourable to health. It was, as he himself said, "a burden too heavy for man." 66 Incessant toil; inconceivable labour of head, and *All the biographers of Cromwell attribute these words to the death of his son Oliver. But Forster, in his Historical Essays (I., 333), has shown that they allude to Robert, his eldest son, who died in 1640, at the age of 19. Cromwell had five sons: 1, Robert; 2, Oliver; 3, Richard; 4, Henry; 5, James, died young. + Guizot's Cromwell, 443-445; Carlyle, III, 367; Lingard, xi., 123. СНАР. Х. heart, and hand; toil, peril, and sorrow manifold, continued for near twenty years now, had done their part; those robust lifeenergies, it afterwards appeared, had been gradually eaten out.”* When he had any attack of illness, which prevented his attending to business, he grew impatient, and ordered his physicians to set him right again at any cost. When Lady Claypole's illness assumed a dangerous character, he was suffering from an attack of the gout; while giving an audience to the Dutch ambassador, on the 30th of July, he felt so unwell that he suddenly broke off the interview. After the death of his daughter he made an effort to resume his labours; but an intermittent fever broke out with great violence, and he was obliged to remain in bed. About the 20th of August the fever ceased, and he resumed his former occupations; but, says George Fox, the Quaker, "I met him riding into Hampton Court park, and before I came to him * * I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and when I came to him he looked like a dead man." In a day or two the fever had greatly increased; his physicians ordered him to leave Hampton Court for Whitehall (24th August), and from that day the disease and danger became more and more urgent. He ceased to attend to public business, and seemed not to think of it. On the 30th of August a mighty storm of wind filled the land with dismay; but there was a deeper cause of alarm for most men, for the Protector was dying, and the question was—who was to follow? His eldest son, Richard, was an idle country gentleman, harmless, but somewhat incapable. Thurloe put the question of succession to the dying man, who directed him to a sealed paper placed in a certain spot in Hampton Court. But the paper could not be found. On the 2nd of September, Thurloe again asked him, and the answer was said to be "Richard." That night another terrible storm fell upon the land, and in the tumult of the winds the dying Oliver was heard uttering a prayer for his country. On the afternoon of the next day-his fortunate day— he passed away in a state of insensibility, Friday, September 3rd, 1658. SECTION III.-THE ANARCHY. 1658-1660. 35. Brief Protectorate of Richard Cromwell. Although Richard Cromwell succeeded his father in the Protectorate without the slightest opposition, it soon become evident that he was deficient in all the qualities essential to the preservation of such an authority as that which had now devolved upon him. He was a * Carlyle, III., 637. + Knight's Pop. Hist., iv., 214. 1659 His Army peti changes. Richard young man of no experience; "a peasant in his nature, yet gentle and virtuous," and he "became not greatness character. because he was indolent and irresolute.* His father having left no wealth, contrary to the general expectation, he soon found himself embarrassed; for the payment of the troops was considerably in arrear, and as he was a total stranger to them, it was not likely that they would remain quiet with such a cause for dissatisfaction. The officers, headed by Fleetwood, presented to him a petition for such organic changes in the constitution of the army, as would have deprived him of all tions for control over it, and he was therefore advised by Thurloe, St. John, Fiennes, and others, to throw himself upon the people, and call a parliament. He did so; and a new parliament met on the 27th of January, 1659. It was different from the last which Oliver had called, inasmuch as the old calls a parliament. representative system was restored; small and decayed boroughs again elected burgesses, and commercial towns, such as Manchester, which had grown into importance, were deprived of their members. The Lords were summoned as in the previous parliament. Every member was called upon to take the oath to the government. A few republicans refused, and did not take their seats; Ludlow and others evaded it, and divisions arising, there presently appeared three distinct parties; the Parties Protectorists, forming about one half of the members; the in it. Republicans, who numbered about fifty, Vane, Haselrigg, Lambert, Ludlow, Bradshaw, Scott, and Nevil, being among them; and the Moderates, or Neuters, Presbyterians for the most part, but many of them concealed Cavaliers. The first subject which called forth the strength of these different parties was a bill which, under the pretext of recognising Richard Cromwell for the rightful successor to his father, would have pledged the parliament to an acquiescence in the existing form of government. The Republicans instantly took the alarm. They did not object to Richard personally; but they took up the revolution at the point at which Cromwell had stopped it by the expulsion of the Rump, and asserted that parliament alone had the right to exercise the supreme authority. The bill was passed with some small modifications, after long and violent debates (14th February), as was also the resolution to treat the "other house" as a house of parliament (18th April). So far, therefore, the Protector's party was triumphant; but there was another power which had yet to be .propitiated-the * Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson. + Forster's Lives, IV., 182-184. The army draws up a tion СНАР. Х. army-the only party which could not enter into a compromise with the old régime, and was, therefore, committed irrevocably to the preservation of the republic. The Presbyterians, moreover, were objects of suspicion to them now, as they formerly were; and when they saw that the new Protector was about to replace the republic in the hands of these men, they reconstituted their councils, and resolved upon seizing the government. "humble Fleetwood, Lambert, and Desborough were at the head representa of this movement: and, as each of them was unable to petition." usurp the government himself, they united to place power in the hands of the ultra republicans, whom they could control. They drew up a "humble representation and petition," complaining bitterly of the contempt into which "the good old cause" had sunk, and of the threats and prosecutions which the parliament had instituted against the patriots who had served their country so well. The Commons received it with scorn; but the military leaders were not to be put down, and they next voted that the common cause was in danger, that the command of the army should be put in the hands of officers possessing its confidence, and that every officer should testify his approval of the execution of Charles Stuart, and of the subsequent proceedings, or resign his commission. The parliament immediately perceived its danger, and declared the military councils illegal. The officers considered this motion as an open declaration of war; they instantly met; and Desborough, in their name, informed Richard that the crisis was at last come; the parliament must be dissolved, either by the civil authority, or by the power of the sword. He might make his election. If he chose the first, the army would provide for his dignity and support; if he did not, they would abandon him to his fate. Richard shrank from the responsibility And which they thus forced upon him; but there was no Richard to alternative, and he issued an ordinance, dissolving the parliament. parliament (April 22nd, 1659). By this act Richard dethroned himself, for, although he continued to reside at Whitehall, he was excluded from having any share in the government, and, soon afterwards, he signed his resignation in form. His brother Henry, the deputy of Ireland, though possessed of considerable vigour and capacity, also resigned his command, and returned to England. He retired into Cambridgeshire, and died in 1674; his brother fled to the continent at the Restoration, to escape from his creditors; and, after an expatriation of almost twenty years, returned to England, and died at Cheshunt in 1713, at the age of eighty-six. compels dissolve the 1659 The 36. Restoration and second expulsion of the Rump. army had now possession of supreme authority, but it had no master-mind to direct its supremacy, and so all real government was at an end. In this emergency the officers determined to recall the Long Parliament, as it existed when Cromwell expelled possess the power or the it. The Presbyterian members whom Pride had expelled in 1648 also demanded re-admission; but as they were Royalists, and still adhered to the principles which formed the basis of the Treaty of Newport, they were refused the privilege. The members of the Rump, therefore, assembled alone, to the number of seventy; the Committee of Safety and the Council of State were reformed, and a Declaration, establishing the former republican government, was issued. But the question soon arose who shall which power should be supreme, the civil, or the supreme military? The parliament, composed of energetic men, parliament, able and full of conviction, resolutely asserted its claims, army? and compelled the officers to receive and to hold their commissions from the speaker; and they proceeded to settle the government in a firm but conciliatory spirit. The nation, however, had no confidence in their stability; while they themselves were debating what should be the ultimate form of government, the various political clubs in London, and throughout the country, were disputing the same subject, so that parties were multiplying everywhere, and dangers multiplied with them. The consequence was, that the Presbyterians, excluded from power, made a secret alliance with the Royalists, and insurrections simultaneously broke out in General several counties. But the plans of these conspirators anarchy. were betrayed; and the only project which took any effect was that of Sir George Booth, who raised Cheshire and Lancashire, in the expectation of being joined by Charles and the Booth's Duke of York. Lambert, however, totally defeated his rising. force at Winnington, near Nantwich (August 18th); and before the end of the month, the risings were suppressed everywhere. There is no doubt that, if Richard could have held the army in due subordination to the civil authority, and the parliament have proceeded in its duties without molestation, the country would have gradually settled down under a government which afforded security for the various interests that had acquired a firm footing during ten years. But the Republicans were disunited; the army had again triumphed; the late dissensions between it and the parliament were renewed; and there was no prospect * Knight's Pop. Hist., IV., 223, Cheshire |