"The means of force and violence," replied John Bradshaw calmly, "and to them we must submit. I do not deny that, but your right we shall always deny, therefore remember it——"
"You are no longer a Council of State," said Cromwell, "and none shall any longer give heed to you. Go about your several businesses."
Bradshaw came down from his place.
"And with us goes the Commonwealth," he returned. "What will you put in place of it?"
"The Lord shall show in His leisure," said Cromwell sternly, and went from the Painted Chamber with Lambert and Harrison after him.
And so it was over; the Parliament had followed the King; the last remnant and pretence of a constitution had been swept away, and a sudden military revolution had placed the army at the head of the nation, their leader thereby becoming the greatest man in England.
For, the King gone, the Parliament broken, who was there left for any man to look to save he who had swept away both King and Parliament and now stamped angrily out of Westminster Hall?
Even Harrison had been taken by surprise; he was enthusiastic, as he foresaw an uninterrupted reign of God's chosen, those military saints who were sacred and purified by their fights for the Lord, but he was also a little bewildered as to the course future events must take.
Lambert merely said, "This is a difficult business and requires careful handling."
But Cromwell himself was openly exalted and uplifted; his passion of anger gave way to a passion of spiritual enthusiasm.
"This hath been a call from the Lord!" he cried, as the three walked back to Whitehall. "Yea, a direct call! Own it, for it hath been unprojected, and is marvellous! This morning did we know of this thing? Nay, and now it is done! And this hath been the way the Lord hath dwelt with us from the first. He hath kept things from our eyes all along so that we have never seen His dispensations beforehand!"
"Truly," replied Harrison, "He hath marvellously witnessed for us, and thou hast been as Joshua who scattered the enemies of the Lord at the waters of Merom, and chased them even into the valley of Mizpeh, and burnt Hazor with fire."
"The Edomites, the Ammonites, and the Moabites are scattered," said Lambert, "but who is now to reign in Israel?"
"We whom God hath called," replied Cromwell.
And so they came to the headquarters of the army at Whitehall, the palace of the late King; and the second revolution was complete.
CHAPTER IV
"THE NEW ORDER"
The rule of the Lord-General and his council of officers, governing in a form parliamentary, called "the little Parliament" was a failure complete and absolute.
Soldiers could not do the work of lawyers, nor the veterans of Naseby, Preston, Dunbar, and Worcester rule England as well as they had defended her. Such measures as they carried were totally against the principles and policy of their leader, who passed from rapt enthusiasm to sad disillusion, and finally to gloomy anger again; the military saints, chosen of the Lord as they were, and the very cream of the elect, could not govern England.
In December 1653, after many consultations with his councils, Cromwell, who hesitated to break up another Parliament by force, persuaded the officers to hand back their powers to him from whom they had received them.
The soldiers, though fanatic, narrow, and intolerant, were neither self-seeking nor unreasonable; they saw that they were unable to govern the country, and that there was only one man who could undertake the task that had been too much for them.
Whether he had the courage, the daring, the firmness to seize this position, to step to the front and take the command so completely, to take upon himself the burden of rule in the present state of the country, after so many attempts at government had failed, was yet to be seen.
He had hitherto shown no personal ambition and no desire to thrust himself forward, his manner being rather to keep himself in the background and wait for God to bid him act.
The moment was serious, perilous, even awful; the Members of the last Parliament and the officers met constantly in prayer; conferences, meetings between all the able men available, were frequent; the people, sternly and austerely ruled for the last three years, with the Puritans triumphant and the Cavaliers utterly silenced and suppressed, waited in a quietude that concealed an intense excitement.
On Wednesday, the 15th of December, the Lord-General rode from one of these meetings to his home, now at Hampton Court. He arrived there bitten with the cold and covered with fine snow. He went straight to the fire in the room which his family used to dine in, and flung himself with the weariness of one spent in mind and body into the great wicker chair with arms and red cushions that he commonly used.
The noble, pleasant room was empty save for Elisabeth, his daughter (the Claypoles had a suite of apartments at Hampton Palace), and her youngest child, who was asleep on her knee. He had not noticed her at first, so quietly was she withdrawn into the shadows, and her low, pleased exclamation, "My father!" gave him a little start.
"Betty!" he impetuously flung out his hand to her; she softly laid the sleeping boy on the velvet couch from which she had risen, and, coming to his side, knelt beside him, and slipped her hand inside his.
He gazed with affectionate pleasure at her charming face, bright and delicate, sensitive and resolute, lifted to his, the brown, waving hair, the expressive blue eyes, the mouth a little wistful, the chin a little proud, the whole infinitely dear and loving.
"What has happened to-day?" she asked gently.
The look of heaviness her greeting had lightened returned to his countenance; he lifted his head and stared into the mellow flames that sprang from the great logs between the brass and irons.
"Betty, it hath come," he said; "it is to be laid on me, the burden, yea, the whole burden. Mine was the responsibility," his rough voice rose a little. "I put down the King, I broke the Parliament—I set up the officers who failed (the more blame to me)—and now it is I who must guide the State."
"Thou?" murmured Elisabeth.
"Who else?" he continued moodily, "who else? It is a call from God and the people, and no man could ask for more. Yea, I know the Lord hath called me as He called me ten years ago from St. Ives—this is thy work—get thou up and do it!"
"Thou—wilt thou be King?" asked Elisabeth, dropping his hand with a shiver of fear.
"Even so," he replied sombrely; "but not with the name of a thing so hated shall I be called. Some time ago this came to me as the thing to do—a flash out of a cloud—then darkness came again; but now it is before me, very clearly, that I must be the Governor of England."
"It is a high calling and an awful place to hold," said his daughter.
"And I am sick in the body, often and often tired in the soul. Thou dost know," he added, with a kind of passion, "how very, very willing I was to retire after Worcester fight; often upon riding the rough ways in Scotland, often when sick in Ireland, have I dreamt to come back to a meek, sweet retirement, but it was not to be. God sought me out again and bid me go forward. And now there is this come upon me. Betty, I shall soon be fifty-five years old. I feel myself, in many ways, old. But there is this work to do. And it is for England. Yet how shall I prevail where these upright and wise ones failed? For they strove earnestly, yet God would not have them. Will He forsake me also? 'Oh, that I had wings like a dove, then would I fly away and be at rest!' Lo, then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest!"
And his head drooped on his breast as if he was discouraged.
Elizabeth took his inert hand again between her fresh, warm palms.
"Why should you fear a cold success in this great venture?" she asked. "Truly it is a great and awful thing to take a king's place, but shall not the Lord still support you as hitherto, and bless you with notable victories?"
Cromwell, still staring into the fire, answered slowly.
"I have some sparks of the light of His countenance, which keeps me alive—yet I see ahead difficulties greater than any I have yet met. What are charges in the field compared to factions in the State? I say the saints failed, and shall not I fail? Will not men say to me, as the Hebrew said to Moses—'Who made thee a Prince and a judge over us. Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?"
Elisabeth shuddered.
"Ay, I killed the Egyptian," continued Cromwell, glooming, "but there are many more out of Egypt ready to take his place, ready to confound us, yea, there are plenty of diabolic persons abroad, ready to set snares for the godly, even the devil and all his angels are lying in wait to thwart this England which the Lord hath elected for His own!"
"But thou canst meet and conquer them, if it be in the power of any man to do so," returned Elisabeth simply. "Again I say it is a high and fearful thing that thou must undertake, but I know that in all things thou wilt walk according to the Gospel."
The Lord-General turned to look at her as she knelt beside him in her rosy gown with the firelight glowing over her, her faced upturned, and her hands clasped on the arm of his chair—a sweet comforter truly, in her seriousness and loving encouragement, in her eager belief in him and rapt piety.
"That is not how many will speak of me, Betty," he said, with a sad tenderness. "Rather will they call me usurper and traitor, and say that I have put down others for carnal ambition. Many hard and contemptuous things will be said of me, Betty."
"I know," she answered bravely, "but need we care?"
As she spoke, a third came down the shadowy room, and joined them—Elisabeth Cromwell.
The Lord-General rose and went up to her.
"You are tired!" she cried, noting that before all, and she caught his arms and peered up into his face tenderly through the dim light.
"Mother," said Mrs. Claypole, rising from beside the empty chair—"the new orders are decided upon to-day——"
"Ah!" cried Cromwell's wife, "and thou?"
"My dear, my best," he said, "we must live at Whitehall now——"
"The king's palace?" she exclaimed, recoiling a little.
"Yea," he answered gently, "for I am called to be the new Governor of this country."
"Why, that is a fearful thing!" she said, with a half-terrified laugh. "Thou wilt never more be safe, nor I at peace!"
She let go her hold on his sleeves and moved to the fire.
"I was happier before it all began," she said abruptly; "this startles me." She gave again that piteous laugh, which was more like a sob. "I am too old to learn to be a Prince's lady," she said.
And she glanced in the mirror above the mantelpiece, looking at her grey hair and meek face.
"I would sooner not put this up in Whitehall for all the world to gape at!" she said.
"Ah, mother!" cried Betty Claypole, and embraced her and kissed her hand.
"Did you not expect this?" asked the Lord-General mournfully. "I did so—because," he added, with great simplicity, "I saw no other fitted for the place."
"There is no other" said his daughter. "He is one and only—is it not so, mother? And thou art one and only, too, dear, and wilt shine in Whitehall far higher than the French Queen."
The Lord-General turned with a little smile to both of them.
"By now you should be used to living in a palace," he said.
"What will they say of us?" asked Elisabeth Cromwell, still troubled. "They will say that we have put ourselves up in the King's place."
"There is no king," interrupted Cromwell firmly. "And as for the place I undertake to fill, the whole people have called me to it, yea, the whole people."
He repeated this statement as if to persuade and convince himself; he well knew that his authority came from a very few of the people, mainly from the army leaders, and that his election was not the result of a general demand on the part of the nation; only the minority had hailed him, the majority remained as always, passive, almost indifferent—or fiercely hostile.
He might be going to rule for the people's sake, purely, but he was not going to rule by their wish. He felt this a weakness in his case and strove to cover it, even to deceive himself in it; a general election, a genuine appeal to the country, might have resulted in bringing in the second Charles Stewart, and for the sake of the cause he had not dared risk it. Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke, who in many ways represented the average Englishman, had pressed Cromwell to call in Charles after the crisis of a year ago, and no one knew better than the Lord-General that the three islands seethed with royalist plots and the restless intrigues of various fanatical sects. No one knew better than he, either, what a target for hatred and rage he would be, what undying fury he would arouse, how many and implacable his enemies would become.
His call might be from God, it certainly was not from the people of England.
Elisabeth Claypole knew something of all this, and to her there was something piteous in the strong man's attempt to belittle his difficulties and disguise the narrow basis on which his authority rested.
Elisabeth Cromwell broke the thoughtful silence.
"And thou wilt be Governor of England!" she said. "Scarcely can I believe it."
She voiced the incredulity of many; yet the thing was done.
On the following Friday, His Excellency the Lord-General of the Forces became His Highness the Lord-Protector of England, and was installed in that office with all ancient ceremonial, formerly used by kings, and kings alone.
There was an installation in the Chancery Court, Westminster Hall, His Highness appearing in a richer dress than he had ever worn before, even at his son's wedding—rich velvet, all black, with a band of gold round his hat, a fine sword, and sword band.
So he went in procession from Whitehall and back again, attended by the Lord Mayor, the judges, and other dignitaries, in robe of state, outriders, running footmen, guards of soldiers, and the usual shouting crowd, half-awed, half-jeering, and wholly curious, some wishing confusion to red-nosed Noll and some thanking the Lord that He had sent a gracious saint to reign over them.
The sergeants with their maces, the heralds in gold and scarlet, proclaimed, at Old Exchange, at Palace Yard, and in other places, Oliver Cromwell Lord-Protector, with the same dignity, and ceremony, and shouting as Charles Stewart had been proclaimed King. So a change so tremendous was accomplished with such little outward difference.
The new ruler had given his oath of fidelity to the new Constitution (an instrument drawn up in four days by the officers, with Lambert at their head) and had received the great seal and sword of State. By the afternoon all was over, and the man who little more than ten years ago had been a gentleman farmer, with no experience save that of the routine of a country estate, with no more knowledge of God and man than he could learn from his one Book, with no power, influence, or wealth at all, was now sole ruler, dictator, and symbol of one of the greatest nations in Europe and foremost champion of the Reformed Religion....
Elisabeth Claypole (Lady Elisabeth now) slept that next spring in Whitehall; the first night she lay on a bed with blue satin curtains brought by Henriette Marie from France, and not sold with the King's other effects by reason of the fine workmanship of the needlework on them.
A mirror once used by the Queen was in the room too, her fleurs-de-lis were embroidered in the hangings, and the whole chamber was still redolent of the perfumes she had kept in the caskets and cupboards. Elisabeth, who had less than any of her family the stern belief in fatalism, which was the central doctrine of their austere and heroic creed, and less blind reliance on the justice of the Puritan cause, felt a faint horror and a regretful remorse at lying among these splendours when the woman to whom they had belonged (to whom they still belonged, Elisabeth thought) dwelt in poverty and loneliness, unfortunate as Queen and wife.
That first night she dreamt dismal things, and woke up in the dark, oppressed with confused remembrances of the excitement of the day.
And with other remembrances, more awful; often had she heard an account of the execution of the King and listened with horrified and reluctant ears.
Now, as she sat up in the great bed, shivering in the winter night, she pictured, all too clearly, the late King as he had been described to her—the slender figure in the pale blue silk vest, with the George on the breast, and the hair gathered up under a white satin cap.
She thought that she saw him glimmer across the dark, looking down at his feet—he wore the wide shoes with silk roses, which had gone out of fashion since his death—and then at her, smiling bitterly.
He came, without moving his limbs, gliding to the bed, passed it, rose up a man's height from the floor, and disappeared in a shaft of shaking light.
"We are intruders here!" said Elisabeth, cold to the heart. She got out of bed (her husband was still asleep; she could hear his even breathing) and stood shivering in the keen air.
A chill like a presage of death crept through her veins; the whole place seemed to exhale an air of hate and misery.
So strong was this feeling that she fumbled for a gown in the dark, and stole to the next chamber to look at her infant son.
The moonlight was in his room, and she saw him sleeping peacefully beside his nurse. Elisabeth crept back, dreading lest she should conjure up another awful image of the late King.
"I am not going to be happy here," she kept saying to herself. "I am not going to be happy here."
The next day she did not leave her bed, and before long it was known that the Protector's favourite daughter was stricken with a lingering, nameless illness.
CHAPTER V
HIS HIGHNESS
"Was England ever in a better way?" demanded the Lord-Protector. "Even under Elisabeth of famous memory (for so we may truly call her) was this country more quiet at home, more respected abroad? Nay, there is no malignant in the land can say it——"
"Surely Your Highness hath no need to make any defence to us," said the Lord Lambert, one of his military council. Some number of them and other dignitaries were gathered in his apartment at Whitehall, listening to him.
His Highness, who had hitherto been pacing restlessly up and down the room, here came to a pause before the table at which the officers and councillors sat.
"I have need to defend myself before all men," he exclaimed vehemently, "for on every hand am I decried and blamed! I speak not of plots against my life and such little matters—the work of a few diabolic persons in the pay of Charles Stewart—but of the great discontent of the Prelatists, of the rage of the Papists, of the intolerance of all—yea, even of the sharpness and bitterness of many of God's people who go about saying that the ways of Zion are filled with money, that their gold is dim, and that there is a sharp wind abroad, but not to cleanse the land."
None of the officers offering to speak, Cromwell continued, still in an impassioned manner—
"Whoever speaks so is wrong! God put me here. My authority is from Him—I will come down for none of them."
He went to the window embrasure and stood there, with his back to the light, his hat pulled over his brows, his arms folded on his breast, gazing at his councillors and friends.
The Protectorship had lasted over a year, and Cromwell was now as absolute as ever any Stewart had dared to be.
His first Parliament had gone the way of the last of King Charles'; the members presuming to question the Instrument by which Cromwell had been elected, His Highness had again resorted to the file of soldiers with loaded snaphances, and, gathering the expelled members in the Painted Chamber, had made them swear fealty to the Instrument and to himself before he permitted them to return to their places.
The immovable Bradshaw, Sir Arthur Haselrig, one of the famous five members, and some others refused the oath; the rest took it and went back.
But so impossible was it to combine a military autocracy with the ancient methods of civil government, so impossible for soldiers and lawyers to work together, that the Parliament again displeased His Highness by revising the Instrument into a constitution which His Highness could not accept.
On the earliest opportunity he dismissed them, and had since ruled entirely on his own authority with such help as he might get from the Council of officers.
So when all the ancient landmarks had been carried away, the power of the sword remained standing and the army and their general ruled England; it was a strange ending to the long, earnest, and bloody struggle, an ending neither Pym nor Hampden had ever foreseen, nor Cromwell himself, when the Parliament he was afterwards to break had sent him down to Cambridge to raise a troop for the defiance of the King.
In ruling without a Parliament he was doing what Strafford and Charles had perished for attempting, in keeping a huge standing army (it was now twice the number named in the Instrument) he was doing what no king of England had been permitted to do; he had, in fact, the power at which Charles had aimed, and he had what Charles had never been able to attain—the armed force to maintain him in that power.
When he dealt with the Parliament he had used the methods Strafford would have used had he dared, and he was ruling now with the absolutism which Strafford had always passionately hoped would one day belong to his master.
But what had not been possible to a descendant of many kings, with all tradition behind him, had been achieved easily enough by a soldier produced by a revolution, who had nothing to rely on but the gifts within himself.
Cromwell was too clear-sighted not to discern the illogical position he was occupying, but it did not disturb him, nor did he find it very wonderful; his fatalism (which his enemies termed opportunism) accepted without question all that the Lord should be pleased to send; his enthusiasm for the cause of liberty disguised, even from himself, the arbitrary nature of his authority, and the victorious soldier, who had fought God's battles from Naseby to Worcester, was not to be frightened from the position he held by any malignant talk of his unlawful right. Nor was the wise patriot and ardent statesman to be argued from the point of vantage from whence he could do the best for England.
But the plots, agitations, upheavals, intolerances, and violences about him, even among his own one-time friends (some of whom, including the lofty-minded Vane, were in the Tower), did shake and trouble him. These, more than anything, thwarted him in his honest and strenuous attempt to set up an orderly government on the ruins left by the violence of war and the wreckage of social upheaval.
"I will not have intolerance!" he broke out now, suddenly at his Council. "I say I will not have it—let every man who is not a Prelatist or a Papist—who doth not preach licentious doctrines in the name of Christ—let him worship in peace!"
"In this way many damnable heresies will creep into the land," answered one of the officers.
"I would rather," cried His Highness, "permit Mahometanism in the land than have one of God's people persecuted!"
His Council remained silent; not one of these men agreed with him, and it was a notable tribute to the respect and affection they had for him that none of them raised a voice in dissent.
He felt, however, their opposition, as indeed he felt the opposition of the entire nation to this dearest of his ideals—toleration.
It seemed as if men never would agree to leave their neighbour in peace on the question of religious belief; and the extraordinary bitterness of the feeling between the various sects was more and more vexing to Cromwell, who had always held tolerance as a matter of principle, and now, as he advanced more and more in greatness and power, recognised it as being a necessary element of wise government at home and useful alliances abroad.
"God," he continued, driving home his point with a certain labour, as if he struggled to put into words what no words would convey, "hath elected England—He hath made us the instruments of some work of His. He wishes us to go forward—to fight heresies and Antichrist—but also He wisheth us to remain united in brotherly love, not to be too nice and strict about the religion of the man next us, so long as he be working clearly in due fear of Him—were we not all kinds in the army? Did any fight the worse for being an Anabaptist? Nay, I do not think so. God hath need of all of us who love Him."
General Lambert answered—
"This is very well here, among sober men, but how shall Your Highness get such a doctrine accepted among the general?"
"Yea," said the Lord-Protector gloomily. "Truly the fools trouble me more than the knaves—most of all do the lukewarm vex me, for nought will bring them to any reason—give me a Saul sooner than a Gallio!"
"Sir," replied one of the officers, "there are Sauls, and plenty too, and maybe the Lord calleth us to combat these sooner than to smooth over heresies and live peaceably with those who are little better than the heathen and the infidel."
Cromwell groaned.
"There is much to do," he answered. "I say there is much to do—yea, serious and mighty things; and shall we stop on the way to argue upon trivial matters?"
"Trivial matters!" echoed several voices at once.
The Lord-Protector flashed upon them—
"Yea, so I say! Study how a man may serve the State, not how he may be persuaded from his proper beliefs—this is enough for any man. 'With my whole heart have I sought Thee—O let me not go wrong out of Thy commandments!'—he who can say that from his heart, leave him in peace. Even these poor people the Quakers—what harm is there in them that they should be so roughly used? What hath God said?—'I have loved thee with an everlasting love—with loving kindness have I drawn thee!' Shall we, too, not strive for a little of this kindness? What have we not had to contend with of late? A Parliament that was but a clog and a hindrance, rebellions such as that at Salisbury, godly men such as Major-General Harrison led astray, rising of Anabaptists—all manner of trouble and confusion—and shall we add to it by persecuting those who differ from us in small matters of doctrine?"
The Council remained silent; the Keepers of the Great Seal glanced at one another. These men were not in dread of His Highness as his Parliament had been; they were not his creation to be scattered at his will—nay, he was rather their creation—yet they knew that when it came to a struggle he always prevailed, gently or roughly, directly or indirectly, and they were aware of his whirlwind resolutions and believed that if occasion arose they, too, might be smitten and cast aside, even though they were the very foundations on which his power stood.
The Protector, eyeing them keenly, was silent too.
The Master of the Rolls, Lenthall (the Speaker whom Harrison had helped from the chair when Cromwell had dismissed the remnant of Charles' last Parliament), propping his grim face on his thin hand, asked His Highness what he was discontented with.
"Surely," he said, with some austerity, "the work of Christ is being accomplished in England? Abroad we have good respect—I think General Blake hath made the name of English respected on the seas—all Europe hath recognized this Commonwealth. Why is Your Highness so vexed and troubled?"
He spoke with some sternness, for he believed, in common with many of his colleagues, that the Protector aimed at an even greater personal power, and to make himself king in name as he was in fact—an ambition which was intensely displeasing to the army and to their leaders, nearly all of whom were staunch Republicans.
"I am vexed and troubled because there is so much confusion and littleness at home," replied Cromwell. "There is more lamenting over the putting down of cock-fighting, play-acting, and horse-racing, gambling, and such lewd sports than ever I heard over the loss of any good thing. There are plots and confusions manifold, and the Lord hath veiled the future from me, therefore I am vexed and troubled. Yet," he added, with a change of voice and a bright flash in his eyes, "I am not discouraged nor disheartened—ye must not so misread me—'in the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and in the night with a pillar of fire'—so it hath always been with me—do not think that that hath ever failed me."
No man had any speech with which to answer him, and the little assembly broke up with the usual courtesies. Only Lambert said as he was leaving: "'He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.'"
When they had all gone His Highness went to the table where they had been sitting, and sat down in his great chair of honour and dropped his head on his breast.
Many and great thoughts oppressed him; the melancholy that was such a close companion to his enthusiasms overcame him. He saw himself old, weary, faced with an impossible situation, with unsurmountable difficulties.
For some while he sat so, his head sinking lower, his hands clasped on his knees; then he was aroused by the gentle opening of the door, and Elisabeth Claypole came softly into the Council Chamber.
"Forgive me," she said. "I did see that the others had gone, and, knowing that you must be alone, I feared you had fallen into sad thoughts." She approached him. "It is not well, my father—nay, it is not well—that you should sit alone with melancholy thoughts."
She sank into the chair that the stern Lambert had just left; the dark wood and leather now framed a very different picture from that the austere soldier had made.
Long ill-health, which physicians could not cure, and intervals of lingering illness, which physicians could not ease, had robbed Elisabeth Claypole of much of her vivacity and much of her fresh comeliness, but she still remained, despite her languor, her paleness, a certain sadness caused by constant pain, a creature choice and rare, and, despite all, cheerful and courageous. As the Lord-Protector lifted his tired eyes to gaze at her dear face he saw in her youthful features a sudden startling likeness to his mother, who had died, still valiant and serene, a few months after she had moved into the King's palace.
This curious resemblance between one dead, so full of years, and one young and living gave him a feeling of horrid presage; he rose abruptly.
"Betty, I wish you would get well," he said.
She smiled faintly.
"That is what Bridget says," she answered (Bridget Ireton was Bridget Fleetwood now, the wife of one of her father's most honoured generals. Mary and Frances were still to wed, and great matches were foretold for them); "but you must not think so much of me—I shall soon be well enough."
Her father gazed at her, yearning over that lost brightness which he had condemned once as evidence of a carnal mind; her grey gown, her modest laces, her smooth ringlets—all were plain enough now; though her father had put on great state and lived almost with the ceremonial of a king, the Lady Elisabeth had no longer any heart for pretty vanities.
"Methinks," said Cromwell bluntly, "thou art not happy when thou art at Whitehall."
"I love Hampton better," she replied evasively.
It was not difficult for him to divine what her thoughts were—what they always had been.
"Thou dost think thy father liveth in another man's house by living in the King's palace," he said, with whimsical tenderness.
"No, no," she answered, with an effort; "but it remindeth me of old, unhappy times—of all the blood that was shed—of the King himself (poor, wretched King)——"
Cromwell interrupted vehemently.
"He did not die for nothing, neither he nor the others—that judgment on the tyrant was the fruit and crown of all our efforts and prepared the way for such of Christ's work as we have been able to do since. Betty"—he turned to his daughter with the same half-anxious, half-proud air of defence with which he had turned to his Council a little before—"is not this country better at home and abroad than it was under the late King?"
"All bear witness to that," she replied quickly; "and that is the reason why you should be more uprised in spirits, sir."
"I have much to overcome," he answered.
"What hath the Lord said?" rejoined the Lady Elisabeth—"'With him that overcometh will I share My throne.'"
"Dear one, thy rebuke is well," answered His Highness gently, "and do not doubt that I shall go forward to the end. But at present there are some things hard to bear—mostly the estrangement from some Christians of my acquaintance. I did never think to be parted from Major-General Harrison and John Bradshaw, those godly men. Albeit I have tried my best to remain with them, and I hope yet to win Major-General Harrison."
"He is hard, father—he is hard and fierce," replied Elisabeth Claypole. "He was cruel to many poor men—I have heard notable talk of it——"
"Thou art too pitiful," said Cromwell, "and judge as a woman. There is no man among us—not thy brother Henry, not Lambert, nor Dishowe, nor my son Fleetwood, a finer soldier or a truer Christian than Thomas Harrison."
"I do not like him," insisted the Lady Elisabeth, with a sparkle of her former spirit. "Methinks he smells of his father's trade, and it is credibly believed that he hath plotted against you with the Anabaptists—Richard told me as much."
"As to that I will demand an answer of these charges from him," returned Cromwell gloomily. "Believe me that I love him."
For answer and comfort she rose and went up to him; as she took him lovingly by the upper arm she started. She felt something hard beneath the rich black velvet which he wore.
"You have armour on!" she murmured.
"Since young Major Gerrard set the precedent there have been many ready to follow his example," replied His Highness. "And in this way I would not die—nay, I would not die shot like a beast."
"O Christ, preserve us all!" cried Lady Elisabeth, and fell weeping over the heart that her father had to guard with a steel corselet from the assassin's bullet or knife.
He put his arm round her as if she had been a child (so, indeed, she still seemed to him); and the thoughts of both went back to the happy home in St. Ives, before they had known sickness or death among them, when she had not gone in silk nor he in secret armour, when they had not known the perils of great positions nor the magnificence of kings' palaces.
CHAPTER VI
MAJOR-GENERAL HARRISON
Major-General Harrison, in grim retirement, sternly rejected the Lord-Protector's half-wistful attempts to win him, and even refused to come to Whitehall as a friend and dine or sup with the Cromwell family.
His Highness, however piqued or hurt he might be in secret, refused to allow any persecution of his old comrade-in-arms, though Harrison was becoming daily more involved with the Anabaptists and that peculiar section of enthusiasts who were styled Fifth-Monarchy Men, because they believed that the four kingdoms foretold by St. John had come to pass, and that the kingdom now approaching was the fifth, that of Christ.
His Highness was lenient with them as with other fanatics: it was in his nature to be tolerant and to prefer any form of enthusiasm to lukewarmness. He was gentle with the Quakers, and listened patiently to George Fox's mystic denunciations of him. "I am sure that thou and I should be good friends did we but know each other," had been his parting words. He interceded, though vainly, for the poor, half-crazed Naylor, who had allowed his followers to salute him as the Messiah and had been sentenced by Parliament to brandings, whippings, and pillories that meant a hideous death.
But though the Lord-Protector was merciful he was also strong, as had been abundantly proved.
When fanaticism became insubordination and the cause of religious liberty cloaked mutiny and revolt, when, in brief, things mystic and intangible interfered with things very practical and tangible, His Highness struck, once and for ever.
He raised no objection to men finding in the pages of the Revelations a doctrine comfortable to themselves; but if they used such doctrines as a pretext for rebellion, he knew how to hold them down with a firm hand.
Therefore, though he argued sweetly and meekly with Thomas Harrison, he had that redoubtable saint closely under his observation, as he also watched Harry Vane and Bradshaw and Haselrig and other of his one-time friends.
His Highness was busy in these days, full of high business with France and Spain and the Netherlands as well as with this business of keeping order at home; for Oliver Cromwell, who had always been a great man, was now a great Prince, and England had become of more importance in Europe than she had been since the royal Elisabeth or the royal Harry V.
It was the Lord's doing, said His Highness, the Lord who had elected the English as His chosen people. A league of the Protestant nations in one alliance was foremost of the Lord-Protector's deeply cherished schemes; at present it seemed far from consummation: more practical matters occupied His Highness. With Blake on the seas and himself at home, England was powerful and vigorous; outwardly she was serene as she was glorious, but none knew better than Cromwell himself how beneath this serenity raged faction, discontent, and confusion, and how uncertain the tenure of this glory was—merely the tenure of his own life.
Soon after a certain complicated and perilous plot against that life had been discovered and crushed, Cromwell received, among other news equally disturbing (for troubles did not lack in England this turbulent spring), an account, well attested, of Major-General Harrison's treasonous dealings with the Fifth-Monarchy Men and of a widespread plot to seduce the army from its allegiance.
An Anabaptist preacher had held forth boldly. "Wilt thou have Christ or Cromwell?" he had asked. In daring and in defiance these enthusiasts were getting beyond all common prudence.
His Highness sent for Major-General Harrison, not in the terms of friendship now, but as a Prince summoning a subject.
Major-General Harrison came, grimly but serenely, and was ushered through all the state the Protector kept, for, though simple with his family and friends, to the outer world he held as much show as any monarch, into the presence of His Highness, who waited him in a very rich chamber that still contained some of the late King's pictures and hangings and carpets.
The Lord-Protector was standing facing the door. He looked less than his years, and his expression and pose were both of extraordinary vigour; he wore brown velvet gallooned with gold and a great falling collar of lace; his hair was now as grey as Charles' when he was brought prisoner to Hampton Court; but his mournful, resolute face showed no sign of age or feebleness.
Thomas Harrison was unbooted, for he had come by water; his attire was the very extreme of severe simplicity, and his dark countenance was pale and stern.
He took off his high-crowned hat as he came into the Protector's presence and flung it, with his cloak, across a chair; he made no reverence and eyed His Highness with calm hostility.
This cold look from one who had been his ancient friend, who had shared with him so many hopes, enthusiasms, toils, and victories, smote the Protector to the heart. He had been prepared for this enmity; but now that he was actually in the presence of his former companion-at-arms, the sight of the figure he had so often seen foremost in the field of battle, fighting for the Lord, and the face which he had seen so often fired by an exaltation kindred to his own, overwhelmed him with a tender sadness and the tears sprang into his eyes.
"Thomas Harrison," he cried, "I did not think that we should meet thus!"
"Nor I," replied the other sombrely. "Sir, have your say with me and let me go—for I have nobler work to do than a vain waiting on men in palaces."
His Highness slightly flushed.
"I see what rankles in thy mind," he replied. "Yet I did think that, whatever the general might say, a man such as thou wouldst have believed the best, not the worst. Nay," he added more warmly, "why shouldst thou think so meanly of me? Looking into thy own heart, thou knowest thy motives and principles pure—hast thou not the generosity to credit that I might look into my heart and say the same?"
Major-General Harrison gazed at him unmoved.
"Wherefore this defence?" he asked. "I have accused you of nothing."
"Not in words," replied the Lord-Protector, "but by thy whole conduct and manner."
"Neither need trouble thee," said the soldier calmly, speaking with more mildness and adopting the form of speech both more respectful and more affectionate, "since thou needst not see me save by thy own wish."
"It was needful that I should see thee," returned His Highness, "it was very needful. Hard things are said of thee—yea, difficult and curious things."
He walked about the room, looking at the floor, his arms folded behind him, then stopped before Harrison, who remained a few paces from the door standing by the chair on which were his hat and cloak.
"Thou hast meddled with Anabaptists and these mistaken people called Fifth-Monarchy Men," he said abruptly.
A grim smile flashed over Harrison's face.
"Art thou become a persecutor and a watcher over men's consciences and a spy on their actions?" he asked.
"Nay," replied His Highness, grimly too, "thou knowest well enough if I am tolerant or no, Thomas Harrison; thou knowest me very well, even to the roots of my heart. But now I am Governor of England, and over England I shall watch."
"Thou art," said the undaunted Republican, "a tyrant."
"I am a ruler by charter of God and the People," said Cromwell. "It is well known in this nation and in all the world"—he lifted his head with great dignity—"whether I am a tyrant or no. But I will admit this much, I have as much power and authority as many a bad king. Take that along with thee."
"I take along with me," returned Harrison, "that thou art a tyrant; and though it hath pleased God, in His mysterious decrees, to place thee where thou art, I know that He hath done it to bring a further rebuke and chastening upon us before the coming of His kingdom and for thy destruction. There is a wind abroad over the land, but one which neither purifies nor cools—the presence of God is not with thee nor with those under thee."
"This is hardly said," answered the Lord-Protector sadly. "Ah, thou hast gone so far with me—canst thou not go a little further? Together we fought, together we judged that wicked man, Charles Stewart——"
Harrison interrupted.
"Then thou wast acting as God directed—but lately thou hast acted as if a bad angel possessed thee. The true saints who fought with thee then could not fight with thee now, Lord Cromwell. A poor few we are—nay, a pitiful remnant, but we believe that before long it will be made known from Heaven that we are right, although it hath seemed good to Him to suffer this turn to come upon us—so that we are a forsaken few."
"Nay, not forsaken!" cried His Highness, much agitated. "Is it not for thee, and such as thee, that this Government exists?"
"I know not," replied Harrison coldly. "Methought that it existed for itself, as all governments do."
"Truly" cried the Lord-Protector, with rising anger, "they who call thee hard have reason—nay, thou art more, thou art unjust."
"Unjust!" repeated Harrison, with more emotion than he had so far shown. "Is thy memory so feeble or thy heart so false as not to recall the old days, the bright morning of our hopes and triumphs?"
He came a step nearer, holding out his hands and speaking vehemently.
"We rejoiced in slaying the enemies of the Lord; with many tears and prayers and strivings we sought assurance of the Lord's will and brought the tyrant to judgment. Thou and I put our names to his death-warrant; thou and I will answer together for that deed before the Heavenly Throne, and I can say before Him who searcheth all hearts, I did this thing thinking His hand was in it, and that the land could only be cleansed from blood by the blood of him who first shed blood. But thou, what canst thou say?—I slew this man that I might climb into his place, succeed to his power, sleep in his rich bed, have carnal honours for my children, and a high name for myself! Oh, Oliver, thou canst say nothing else!"
"Before Him who made me a Joshua over this Israel I need no defence," answered His Highness simply. "He knoweth my poor heart and what He put therein—and how this miserable flesh, with many stumbles, tried to do His will. I am not afraid of my God. Leave Him to judge me and return to thy ancient faithfulness to me."
"Thou wert," said Harrison, "as the apple of mine eye, but now I loathe thee. Thou hast turned aside, and thou shalt not tempt me to follow thee, even if thou flatterest me, saying, 'Come and sit on my right hand and share my power.'"
The Lord-Protector took a sharp turn about the room.
"Thou art deluded, I plainly see," he said; "but it cannot be allowed that thou shouldst run into these excursions, though I have given thee a great latitude—I say that it cannot be allowed. I have with a great deal of patience suffered thee to sally out, but I perceive thou art misled, yea, and rebellious—surely we will have no rebellion."
"Do what you will with me," said Harrison calmly. "I will give my little poor testimony to the truth as I know it. Maybe I am a little mistaken, but I act according to my understanding, desiring to make the revealed Word of God in His Holy Scriptures my guide."
"Thou art mistaken," replied Cromwell gloomily. "Beware of a hard heart and an obdurate spirit. And beware of these Fifth-Monarchy Men. They plot against the Commonwealth—they plot against my life."
"You believe that of me?" asked Harrison sharply.
"Why not?" returned His Highness scornfully. "Thou hast put thy hand to the removal of one tyrant and may willingly desire to remove another."
"What I did against Charles Stewart was not done in a corner," said the Republican calmly, "nor should I act in a hidden way against you or against anyone."
"Nay," said Cromwell impulsively, "I believe it. Forgive me. But thou art in these Fifth-Monarchy plots."
"We do not plot," returned Harrison, "nor intrigue, whatever may be noised of us."
"Thou mayst put what name thou wilt to it, Major-General Harrison," said His Highness; "but it is a known fact that thou seekest to disturb the Government and seduce the army."
"I neither own the Government nor molest it. But wherefore these words? I do not seek to fly or in any way to save myself. Sir, I am in your power, both I and those poor hearts, those few redcoats who still hold the pure doctrine."
"Thou knowest," replied the Lord-Protector hastily, and with evident emotion, "that I wish to be at peace with all men—even with the malignants."
"Yea!" cried Thomas Harrison, with a flame of anger in his dark eyes, "you have been very ready to make peace with Bael—to this has your tolerance led you!"
"I would that thou hadst a little more tolerance," was the mild reply.
"These are vain words," said the soldier impatiently. "You and I have parted company long since. Our ways lie differently now. Tell me what you will of me and let this end."
Oliver Cromwell looked at him fully and mournfully, then sighed.
"If thou wilt recognise the Government thou mayst live in peace for me."
Thomas Harrison replied in a tone serene and unmoved—
"I will not; come what may, I will not."
The Lord-Protector straightened his figure (which drooped a little in the shoulders of late), and then the blood slowly overspread his face.
"I shall not take this lightly," he said; "for my own dignity I may not take it lightly—I am the Governor of England. I have some authority."
"The brief carnal power of a thing of clay," replied Harrison, with an exalted smile. "Wherefore should I seek to please thee, who in a few years will be gone from this scene, leaving behind thy power and thy splendour? I listen to the voice of Him before whom thou and all the nations of the earth are less than a drop of water in the bucket; my thoughts are fixed, not on this dusty sojourn here, but on those azure eternities which God giveth to His servants. Therefore I will not obey thee in this matter, for my conscience is against it."
The Lord-Protector was silent a moment, then he spoke in a tone from which all friendliness and pleading had gone.
"Then if you will not recognize the Government, you must cease to serve it. I shall ask for your commission."
Major-General Harrison gently unfastened his sword thread and laid the plain weapon and the plain belt on a little table which stood near the Protector.
"There is my sword," he said, "which hath done some poor little service. Take it and let it rust."
Cromwell remembered Marston Moor, Naseby, Basing, Oxford, many warm acts of friendship, many mutual prayers—all the old laborious, hopeful, triumphant days which they had shared.
He said nothing; his hand went out as if yearningly and lovingly towards the weapon which he had so often seen red with the newly smitten blood of God's enemies.
He still did not speak, and his silence was stern.
Thomas Harrison took up his hat and cloak, and with a courteous but cold salute turned to take his leave.
His Highness turned to watch him and suddenly spoke, even as the other had his hand on the door.
"Thomas Harrison, it is very fitting that I make some defence to you. You have known me very well, and you believe hard, diabolic things of me. I would make some answer to this. I may bear the unkind thoughts of mine enemies, but I would be relieved of the ill-opinion of those who were once my friends."
Harrison paused, and then turned with his back to the door, still unmoved and hostile, but attentive, as if compelled to that amount of respect by the rough, impassioned voice and fervent tones of the man for whom he would have given his life a few years ago. As he listened to his one-time beloved General, something of the old affection touched him, though faintly; he waited.
"You accuse me of base ambition," said His Highness, lifting his head—his face had a look of a lion, mournful and infinitely strong—"but that failing I never had. You accuse me of grasping at the King's power, but that I never wanted. A man was needed—England, I say, had need of a man—but none came. Any of you could have come forward to take this place I hold—this place of no peace, little sleep, and endless labour—any of you! But you were not called, or you did not heed the call, you stepped aside—and England waited. I know not if you lacked courage, or if your conscience called you different ways—but none offered. And I, on in years and something broken by the wars, besought the Lord not to put this upon me—yet He did. And I did not shirk it. I obeyed Him as I did when I left London to form a troop in Cambridge that time the King did raise his standard against the people. Each time the Lord's breath was through me, as wind is through a hollow reed, and by Him I could do a little. That is my only merit. And England is something now—the home of His chosen. You were nice, you hesitated, you made punctilios—but I heard the call and saw the light, as oft in the battalion, and I obeyed. I have tried many ways of government, each as it comes to my hand. What my position truly is I know not—I am a parish constable set to keep the peace. Yet here I be, by God's will, and here I do my work. You may judge me with charity, Thomas Harrison, as one upon whom a very heavy burden hath been laid."
He paused, and his head drooped.
"There is no more to say," he added, and his rough voice had fallen lower. "Farewell—'God watch between me and thee when we are absent from one and another.'"
"Amen," said Thomas Harrison.
And so they parted.
The Lord-Protector stood lonely in the rich chamber, which had been furnished by the dead King and the banished Queen.
He went to the window and looked on the spring fairness of the garden, on the warm glitter of the river and the sails going down to the sea.
His greatness oppressed him in that moment, and he was home-sick for the past and the uneventful days of his youth.
CHAPTER VII
LADY NEWCASTLE
Through the mingled splendour and distress, brightness and confusion of these years of the Lord-Protector's ruling in England, while the glory of England rose to a perilous height (her renown glittered as the foam on a wave cast for a moment into the sun—soon to fall into the darkness of the waters again and to be lost), while Oliver Cromwell shone refulgent in all men's eyes, the Lady Elisabeth Claypole, moving from her husband's house to her father's palaces, and in all places greatly loved, faded visibly and pitifully.
She had always been an advocate of mercy, and many a Cavalier owed his life or his estate to her pleadings, and there was no one, however he might hate Cromwell, who had not a gentle thought for this daughter of his. Among her keen, delicate sisters she showed yet more keen and delicate, and though she had now lost the fresh English fairness which bloomed in the Lady Mary and the Lady Frances, and which had become womanly grace in Bridget Fleetwood, yet of all of them she was the most lovable. If any wished a favour from the Lord-Protector it was to her they went to ask her intercession, for as her illness and her weakness grew and her end came nearer, nearer with every painful breath she drew, His Highness' tender love increased into an agony of yearning, until it seemed as if he could refuse her nothing.
One April, when His Highness was deep in great affairs—letters to Cardinal Mazarin, letters to General Blake now sailing victorious in foreign waters, questions of his taking the title of King, questions of the Fifth Monarchy men having broken out rebelliously at last, and Thomas Harrison being in the Tower for abetting them—a supplicant came to Hampton with a very earnest entreaty to be allowed to see the Lord-Protector. Whereat John Thurloe, His Highness' faithful secretary, was indignant almost beyond the bounds of courtesy, and mighty angry with the servants who had let the lady get as far as the antechamber.
"Lackeys," said she, on hearing his complaint, "are still used to pay respect to princesses."
But he told her she could by no means see His Highness, and he spoke so firmly that she sadly turned away.
"Alas!" she murmured, "that I should be sent like a beggar from the door of a usurper!"
John Thurloe regarded her sharply.
"Had you been a man, madam, you would have had to answer for that remark."
The lady turned and seemed about to reply, when Elisabeth Claypole chanced to pass the open door, and, seeing a stranger there, she entered.
"Who is this?" she asked.
"A lady who will not give her name," said the secretary dryly; "but no one can see His Highness now."
"My name," said the stranger, with that air of fantastic dignity which disguised her haggard sadness, "is something too great to be bandied about here—but give me yours, madam."
"I am Elisabeth Claypole, madam," returned the Protector's daughter mildly.
The lady swept a courtly curtsey.
"There is no need," she replied, "for me to disguise my quality from one so generous and good. I am, madam, the wife of the unfortunate Marquess of Newcastle."
This name, which a few years ago had been one of the greatest in the land, and still echoed in the minds of men, had an effect on John Thurloe and even on Elisabeth herself. The new order had not endured long enough for people to have eradicated the instinct of respect for noble blood and ancient names; for a moment the Marchioness, in her poor attire, abashed the two commoners, so strong still were tradition and the old teaching.
Then Elisabeth Claypole spoke.
"Will you come with me, madam, and take a little poor hospitality?"
Thurloe, glad to be relieved of the responsibility of the distinguished petitioner, put in his word.
"I will give Your Grace's name to His Highness presently, but I do fear it is useless."
"Come with me, madam," repeated the Lady Elisabeth, and she gently took the Marchioness by the hand and led her to her apartment.
Lady Newcastle came meekly; for all her air of pride she was downcast and bewildered with misfortune.
The Lady Elisabeth's room looked on the river, now shaded by willow trees covered with drooping yellow and red leaves, the banks were grown with tall grasses and rushes, and the first pale flowers of spring, beyond the soft fields, faded into the soft sky.
Elisabeth Claypole loved to sit day after day at her deep window gazing on that scene, watching the river that wandered through such pleasant ways through the great city, past the palace, past the Traitor's Gate, out to the wonder and turmoil of the open sea.
It was a beautiful chamber hung with embroidery of her own stitching, and furnished with many curious pieces from the Netherlands and China, carpets of Persia, and two mirrors framed in glass flowers and done by the Venetians.
She put a chair for the Marchioness and herself sank into the window seat, glancing swiftly at her guest. She saw a lady of a medium loveliness, most piteously worn and marred by sorrow, and attired in a tasteful if unusual style, which gave her the appearance of being richly dressed; but Elisabeth's quick eyes saw that the grey silk dress had been turned and scoured, that the ruffles of lace had been darned again and again, and that she wore no jewels. The Protector's daughter felt ashamed of her own velvet gown and the valuable pearls she had in her ears.
"I wished to see your father, madam," said Lady Newcastle, in a voice where fatigue and humiliation struggled with a natural pride.
"Alas!" murmured Elisabeth. "He is so pressed with business—will you tell your errand to me, my Lady Newcastle?"
"I have come to England in company with my brother-in-law to endeavour to obtain some remnant of my husband's estates," was the answer. "And we were returning in despair, when I, unknown to him, thought to make this personal appeal."
The Lady Elisabeth knew at once that the unfortunate gentlewoman had made an utterly hopeless journey, for she was well aware that one of the late King's generals, and a royalist so notable as the Marquess of Newcastle, could never obtain grace from the Commonwealth.
Wishful, as ever, to avoid inflicting pain rudely, she made an evasive answer.
"Will your lord swear fealty to the Government, madam?"
"Nay—do you take him for a disloyal wretch?" flashed the Marchioness.
"Then," replied Elisabeth, with something of her pride roused, "I wonder that you should have undertaken the labour of this journey."
A pallor overshadowed the royalist lady's features, and she hung her head, as if she heard in these words the full extent of her miseries and the depths of her humiliations.
"Could you see how the exiles live in Paris, in Rotterdam—in Antwerp," she answered—"all of us—even the Queen—you would not wonder at my endeavour, however foolish, to obtain some relief."
It was the Protector's daughter who paled now; the thought of the English exiles wandering miserably through Europe had constantly haunted her.
"You are then in distress?" she asked, in a low voice.
"In the greatest poverty," replied Lady Newcastle, her pride melting before the touch of tenderness, and the tears suddenly reddening her eyes. "The French King makes nothing of us; he is all for an alliance with the usur—with your father. The Princess of Orange can do nothing for us, for, since her husband died, the Netherlands have put down her son and so—and so——" she paused to command herself, then continued: "Do not think I complain for myself. My lord was ruined when I married him in Paris. I took him for great and exceeding love, as he did me, seeing I was dowerless, and I make it no hardship to share his exiled wanderings with him—but there are so many others even wanting bread—and Her Majesty and the Princess Henrietta are in such distress——But not to you should I speak of these things. I would only explain how it is that I have so far lowered my dignity as to come here on this errand."
Elisabeth Claypole caught a glimpse of the sufferings, poverties, and misery of the exiled English in this speech, given so humbly, so haltingly, yet with the accent of a pride unquenched.
My lady dashed the tears from her eyes with a laced handkerchief.
"I am Margaret Lucas," she added, "and well used to misfortunes. I came to England to try what I could do, but I found no friend anywhere, nor any one who would bring me before your father. So I came to-day—wildly and foolishly, it might be—to ask if he would give my lord his rights."
"I would not give you false hopes," replied the Lady Elisabeth. "My Lord's estate is forfeit, and no entreaties of yours or mine could avail to restore it."
"Entreaties?" cried Lady Newcastle. "I fear I could not entreat——"
She abruptly checked her sentence, but Elisabeth knew well enough that some hard thing against the Protector had been on her tongue.
"Have patience, my lady, this life is very short and full of sadness. All these great affairs and great pains will soon be past, and others will be in our places while we shall be at rest—up there"—she pointed to the sky—"above it all, God grant!"
"You speak as if you too were unfortunate!" said the Marchioness wonderingly. "Surely, Mrs. Claypole, you do not need philosophy to sweeten your lot."
"I am dying," answered Elisabeth Claypole. "And I am young and have much on this earth that I love, also I suffer very greatly—so much that I wish I could die quicker. Therefore," she added sweetly, "you see that I have not found the world wholly pleasant, and why I long for these mansions God hath prepared for us above."
My lady's warm heart was greatly moved by this touching confession.
"Forgive me, I did not know," she answered; "but I dare hope you are mistaken——"
"Those who love me deceive themselves, but I know," smiled Elisabeth. "I am not afraid to die—but sometimes, madam, I am a coward before the pain, the great pain,"—then, hastily turning the subject from herself, she added,—"I mix not at all in business, I know my father doeth God's work—yet I am most grieved for you and such as you, for all the blood shed, for all the misery. Ah me!—our day is now, we seem very glorious, but what doth it all hang on? My father's life—no more. And it may be that we too shall end and come to nothing and your turn come again. I know not. Sometimes life seems very far away from me, as if I surveyed it from a distance, and saw it all blurred and vague."
"How many sad women I have seen!" exclaimed Margaret. "The Queen—you would not know her—an old woman, all burnt away with fiery tears; Lady Strafford, all broken and silenced; Lady William Pawlet, who hath crept into a convent and is as near a nun as a widow may be—and myself—how I have wept—mine eyes are weakened for ever because of tears. It was for Charles, my dear, dear brother ... you know they shot him, poor gallant soldier, outside Colchester.... Your father was guiltless of that, or nothing had brought me here to-day."