In the matter of a political settlement the proceedings were equally rapid and simple. Celerity here was made possible by the fact that the House considered itself quite precluded from discussing the whole question of the future Constitution. Had they entered on that question, the probability is that they would have decided for a negotiation with Charles II., with a view to his return to England and assumption of the Kingship on terms borrowed from the old Newport Treaty with his father, or at all events on strictly expressed terms of some kind, limiting his authority and securing the Presbyterian Church-Establishment. Even this, however, was problematical. There were still Republicans and Cromwellians in the Parliament, and not a few of the Presbyterians members had been Commonwealth's men so long that it might well appear doubtful to them whether a return to Royalty now was worth the risks, or whether, if there must be a return to Royalty, it was in the least necessary to fix it again in the unlucky House of Stuart. Then the difficulties out of doors! No one knew what might be the effect upon Monk's own army, or upon the numerous Republican sectaries, of a sudden proposal in the present Parliament to restore Charles. On the other hand, the Old Royalists throughout the country had no wish to hear of such a proposal. They dreaded nothing so much, short of loss of all chance of the King's return, as seeing him return tied by such terms as the present Presbyterian House would impose. It was a relief to all parties, therefore, and a satisfactory mode of self-delusion to some, that the present House should abstain from the constitutional question altogether, and should confine itself to the one duty of providing another Parliament to which that question, with all its difficulties, might be handed over.—On the 22nd of February, the second day of the restored House, it was resolved that a new Parliament should be summoned for the 25th of April, and a Committee was appointed to consider qualifications. The Parliament was to be a "full and free" one, by the old electoral system of English and Welsh constituencies only, without any representation of Scotland or Ireland. But what was meant by "full and free"? On this question there was some light on the 13th of March, when the House passed a resolution annulling the obligation of members of Parliament to take the famous engagement to be faithful to "the Commonwealth as established, without King or House of Lords," and directing all orders enjoining that engagement to be expunged from the Journals. This was certainly a stroke in favour of Royalty, in so far as it left Royalty and Peerage open questions for the constituencies and the representatives they might choose; but, taken in connexion with the order, eight days before, for the revival of the Solemn League and Covenant—in which document "to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority" is one of the leading phrases—it was received generally as a positive anticipation of the judgment on these questions. There was yet farther light, however, between March 13 and March 16, when the House, on report from the Committee, settled the qualifications of members and electors. All Papists and all who had aided or abetted the Irish Rebellion were to be incapable of being members, and also all who, or whose fathers, had advised or voluntarily assisted in any war against the Parliament since Jan. 1, 1641-2, unless there had been subsequent manifestation of their good affections. This implied the exclusion of all the very conspicuous Royalists of the Civil Wars and the sons of such; and the present House, as the lineal representative of the Parliamentarians in those wars, could hardly have done less, especially as there was a saving-clause of which moderate Royalists would have the benefit, and as the electors were sure to interpret the saving-clause very liberally. For there was not even the same guardedness in the qualifications of the electors themselves. It was proposed, indeed, by the Committee to disfranchise all "that have been actually in arms for the late King or his son against the Parliament or have compounded for his or their delinquency" with an exception only in favour of manifest penitents; but this was negatived by the House by ninety-three votes (Lord Ancram and Mr, Herbert tellers) to fifty-six votes (Scott and Henry Marten tellers). Thus, active Royalists of the Civil Wars, if they might not be elected, might at least elect; and, as another regulation disqualified from electing or being elected all "that deny Magistracy or Ministry or either of them to be the Ordinances of God "—viz. all Fifth Monarchy men, extreme Anabaptists, and Quakers—the balance was still towards the Royalists. In short, as finally passed, the Bill was one tending to bring in a Parliament the main mass of which should consist of Presbyterians, though there might be a large intermixture of Old Royalists, Cromwellians, and moderate Commonwealth's men. To such a Parliament it might be safely left to determine what the future form of Government should be, whether Commonwealth continued, restored Kingship, or a renewal of the Protectorate. The present House had not itself decided anything. It had not decided against a continuance of the Commonwealth, should that seem best. It had only assumed that possibly that might not seem the best, and had therefore removed obstacles to the free deliberation of either of the other schemes. The revival of the Solemn League and Covenant might seem to imply more; but the phraseology of a document of 1643 might admit of re-interpretation in 1660.—A special perplexity of the present House was in the matter of the Other House or House of Lords. They were now sitting themselves as a Single House, notwithstanding that the Long Parliament, of which they professed themselves to be a continuation, consisted of two Houses. This was an anomaly in itself, nay an illegality; and there had been a hot-headed attempt of some of the younger Peers to remove it by bursting into the House of Lords at the same time that the secluded members took their seats in the Commons. Monk's soldiers had, by instructions, prevented that; and, with the full consent of all the older and wiser peers at hand, the management of the crisis had been left to the one reconstituted House. The anomaly, however, had been a subject of serious discussion in that House. On the one hand, they could not pass a vote for the restitution of the House of Peers without trenching on that very question of the future form of Government which they had resolved not to meddle with. On the other hand, absolute silence on the matter was impossible. How could the present single House, for example, even if its other acts were held valid, venture on, an Act for the dissolution of that Long Parliament whose peculiar privilege, wrung from Charles I. in May 1641, was that it should never be dissolved except by its own consent, i.e. by the joint-consent of the two component Houses? Yet this was the very thing—that had to be done before way could be made for the coming Parliament. The course actually taken was perhaps the only one that the circumstances permitted. When the House, at their last sitting, on Friday, March 16, did pass the Act dissolving itself and-calling the new Parliament, it incorporated with the Act a proviso in these words: "Provided always, and be it declared, that the single actings of this House, enforced by the pressing necessities of the present times, are not intended in the least to infringe, much less take away, the ancient native right which the House of Peers, consisting of those Lords who did engage in the cause of the Parliament against the forces raised in the name of the late King, and so continued until 1648, had and have to be a part of the Parliament of England." Here again there was not positive prejudgment so much as the removal of an obstacle.—It did seem, however, as if the House would not separate without passing the bounds it had prescribed for itself. It had already been debated in whose name the writs for the new Parliament should issue? "In King Charles's" had been the answer of the undaunted Prynne. He had been overruled, and the arrangement was that the writs should issue, as under a Commonwealth, "in the name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England." At the last sitting of the House, just as the vote for the dissolution was being put, the Presbyterian Mr. Crewe, provoked by some Republican utterance of Scott, moved that the House, before dissolving, should testify its abhorrence of the murder of the late King by a resolution disclaiming all hand in that affair. The untimely proposal caused a great excitement, various members starting up to protest that they at least had never concurred in the horrid act, while others, who had been King's judges or regicides, betrayed their uneasiness by prevarications and excuses. Not so Scott. "Though I know not where to hide my head at this time," he said boldly, "yet I dare not refuse to own that not only my hand, but my heart also, was in that action"; and he concluded by declaring he should consider it the highest honour of his existence to have it inscribed on his tomb: "Here lieth one who had a hand and a heart in the execution of Charles Stuart." Having thus spoken, he left the House, most of the Republicans accompanying him. The Dissolution Act was passed, and there was an end of the Long Parliament. Their last resolution was that the 6th of April should be a day of general fasting and humiliation.¹

Though the House was dissolved, the Council of State was to sit on, with full executive powers, till the meeting of the new Parliament. Annesley was now generally, if not habitually, the President of the Council, and in that capacity divided the principal management of affairs with Monk.

The Parliament having provided for expenses by an assessment of £100,000 a month for six months, the Council could give full attention to the main business of preserving the peace till the elections should be over. Conjoined with this, however, was the important duty of carrying out a new Militia Act which the Parliament had framed. It was an Act disbanding all the militia forces as they had been raised and officered by the Rump, and ordering the militia in each county to be reorganized by commissioners of Presbyterian or other suitable principles. The Act had given great offence to the regular Army, naturally jealous at all times of the civilian soldiery, but especially alarmed now by observing into what hands the Militia was going. It would be a militia of King's men, they said, and the Commonwealth would be undone! So strong was this feeling in the Army that Monk himself had remonstrated with the House, and the Militia Act, though passed on the 12th of March, was not printed till the House had removed his objections. This had been done by pointing to the clause of the Act which required that all officers of the new Militia should take an acknowledgment "that the war undertaken by both Houses of Parliament in their defence against the forces raised in the name of the late King was just and lawful." When Monk had professed himself satisfied, the re-organization of the Militia went on rapidly in all the counties. Monk was one of the Commissioners for the Militia of Middlesex, and to his other titles was added that of Major-General and Commander-in-chief of the Militia of London. Meanwhile the Council had issued proclamations over the country against any disturbance of the peace, and most of the active politicians had left town to look after their elections. The Harringtonian or Rota Club, one need hardly say, was no more in existence. After having been a five months' wonder, it had vanished, amid the laughter of the Londoners, as soon as the secluded members had added themselves to the Rump. Theorists and their "models" were no longer wanted.¹

Not even yet was there any positive intimation that the Commonwealth was defunct. No one could declare that authoritatively, and every one might hope or believe as he liked. The all but universal conviction, however, even among the Republicans, was that the Republic was doomed, and that, if the last and worst consummation in a return of Charles Stuart was to be prevented, it could only be by consenting to some single-person Government of a less fatal kind. O that Richard's Protectorate could be restored! The thing was talked of by St. John and others, but the possibility was past. But might not Monk himself be invested with the sovereignty? Hasilrig and others actually went about Monk with the offer, imploring him to save his country by this last means; and the chance seemed so probable that the French ambassador, M. de Bordeaux, tried to ascertain through Clarges whether Monk's own inclinations ran that way. Monk was too wary for either the Rumpers or the Ambassador. He declined the offers of Hasilrig and his friends, allowing Clarges privately to inform the Council that such had been made; and, though he received the Ambassador, it was but gruffly. "The French ambassador visited General Monk, whom he found no accomplished courtier or statesman," writes Whitlocke sarcastically under March 24; and the ambassador's own account is that he could get nothing more from Monk, in reply to Mazarin's polite messages and requests for confidence, than a reiterated statement that he had no information to give. And so, a Single Person being inevitable, and the momentary uncertainty whether it would be "Charles, George, or Richard again" being out of the way, the long-dammed torrent had broken loose. And what a torrent! "King Charles! King Charles! King Charles!" was the cry that seemed to burst out simultaneously and irresistibly over all the British Islands. Men had been long drinking his health secretly or half-secretly, and singing songs of the old Cavalier kind in their own houses, or in convivial meetings with their neighbours; openly Royalist pamphlets had been frequent since the abolition of Richard's Protectorate; and, since the appearance of the Presbyterian Parliament of the secluded members, there had been hardly a pretence of suppressing any Royalist demonstrations whatever. On the evening of the 15th of March, the day before the Parliament dissolved itself, some bold fellows had come with a ladder to the Exchange in the City of London, where stood the pedestal from which a statue of Charles I. had been thrown down, and had deliberately painted out with a brush the Republican inscription on the pedestal, "Exit tyrannus, Regum ultimus," a large crowd gathering round them and shouting "God bless Charles the Second" round an extemporized bonfire. That had been a signal; but for still another fortnight, though all knew what all were thinking, there had been a hesitation to speak out. It was in the end of March or the first days of April 1660, when the elections had begun, that the hesitation suddenly ceased everywhere, and the torrent was at its full. They were drinking Charles's health openly in taverns; they were singing songs about him everywhere; they were tearing down the Arms of the Commonwealth in public buildings, and putting up the King's instead.¹

Popular feeling having declared itself so unmistakeably for Charles, it was but ordinary selfish prudence in all public men who had anything to lose, or anything to fear, to be among the foremost to bid him welcome. No longer now was it merely a rat here and there of the inferior sort, like Downing and Morland,¹ that was leaving the sinking ship. So many were leaving, and of so many sorts and degrees, that Hyde and the other Councillors of Charles had ceased to count, on their side, the deserters as they clambered up. He received now, Hyde tells us, "the addresses of many men who had never before applied themselves to him, and many sent to him for his Majesty's approbation and leave to sit in the next Parliament." Between London and Flanders messengers were passing to and fro daily, with perfect freedom and hardly any disguise of their business. Annesley, the President of the Council of State, was in correspondence with the King; Thurloe, now back in the Secretaryship to the Council, was in correspondence with him, and by no means dishonourably; and in the meetings of the Council of State itself, though it was bound to be corporately neutral till the Parliament should assemble, the drift of the deliberations was obvious. The only two men whose resistance even now could have compelled a pause were Monk and Montague. What of them?——It was no false rumour that Montague, the Cromwellian among Cromwellians, the man who would have died for Cromwell or perhaps for his dynasty, had been holding himself free for Charles. Under a cloud among the Republicans since his suspicious return from the Baltic in September last, but restored to command by the recent vote of the Parliament of the secluded members making him joint chief Admiral with Monk, he was at this moment (i.e. from March 23 onwards) in the Thames with his fleet, in receipt of daily orders from the Council and guarding the sea-passage between them and Flanders. He had on board with him, as his secretary, a certain young Mr. Samuel Pepys, who had been with him already in the Baltic, had been meanwhile in a clerkship in the Exchequer office, but had now left his house in Axe Yard, Westminster, and his young wife there, for the pleasure and emoluments of being once more secretary to so kind and great a master. In cabin talk with the trusty Pepys the Lord Admiral made no secret of his belief that the King would come in; but it was only by shrewd observations of what passed on board, and of the strange people that came and went, that Pepys then guessed what he afterwards knew to be the fact. "My Lord," as Pepys always affectionately calls his patron, was pledged to the King, and was managing most discreetly in his interest.²—But the power of Montague, as Commander-in-chief of the Navy only, was nothing in comparison with Monk's. How was Monk comporting himself? Most cautiously to the last. Though it was the policy of his biographers afterwards, and agreeable to himself, that his conduct from the date of his march out of Scotland should be represented as a slow and continuous working on towards the one end of the King's restoration, the truth seems to be that he clung to the notion of some kind of Commonwealth longer than most people, and made up his mind for the King only when circumstances absolutely compelled him. With the Army, or a great part of it, to back him, he might resist and impede the restoration of Charles; but, as things now were, could he prevent it ultimately? Why not himself manage the transaction, and reap the credit and advantages, rather than leave it to be managed by some one else and be himself among the ruined? That he had been later than others in sending Charles his adhesion was no matter. He had gained consequence by the very delay. He was no longer merely commander of an Army in Scotland, but centre and chief of all the Armies; he was worth more for Charles's purposes than all the others put together; and Charles knew it! So Monk had been reasoning for some time; and it was on the 17th of March, the day after the dissolution of the Parliament of the Secluded Members, that his ruminations had taken practical effect. Even then his way of committing himself was characteristic. His kinsman, Sir John Greenville, the same who had been commissioned to negotiate with him when he was in Scotland, was again the agent. With the utmost privacy, only Mr. Morrice being present as a third party, Monk had received Greenville at St. James's, acknowledged his Majesty's gracious messages, and given certain messages for his Majesty in return. He would not pen a line; Greenville was to convey the messages verbally. They included such recommendations to his Majesty as that he should smooth the way for his return by proclaiming a pardon and indemnity in as wide terms as possible, a guarantee of all sales and conveyances of lands under the Commonwealth, and a liberal measure of Religious Toleration; but the most immediate and practical of them all was that his Majesty should at once leave the Spanish dominions, take up his quarters at Breda, and date all his letters and proclamations thence. For the rest, as there were still many difficulties and might be slips, the agreement between his Majesty and Monk was to be kept profoundly secret.³

Over the seas went Greenville, as fast as ship could carry him, with the precious messages he bore. At Ostend, where he arrived on the 23rd of March, he reduced them to writing; and the next day, and for several days afterwards, Charles, Hyde, Ormond, and Secretary Nicholas, were in joyful consultation over them in Brussels. The advice of an instant removal to Breda fitted in with their own intentions. Neither the Spanish territory nor the French was a good ground from which to negotiate openly with England; nor indeed was Spanish territory quite safe for Charles at a time when, seeing his restoration possible, Spain might detain him as a hostage for the recovery of Dunkirk and Mardike. To Breda, accordingly, as Monk advised, the refugees went. They went in the most stealthy manner, and just in time to avoid being detained by the Spanish authorities. Before they reached Breda, however, but when Greenville could say that he had seen them safe within Dutch territory, he left them, to post back to England with a private letter to Monk in the King's own hand, enclosing a commission to the Captaincy-General of all his Majesty's forces, and with six other documents, which had been drafted by Hyde, and were all dated by anticipation "At Our Court at Breda, this 4/14th of April 1660, in the Twelfth Year of Our Reign." One was a public letter "To our trusty and well-beloved General Monk," to be by him communicated to the President and Council of State and to the Army officers; another was to the Speaker of the House of Commons in the coming Parliament; a third was a general "Declaration" for all England, Scotland, and Ireland; a fourth was a short letter to the House of Lords, should there be one; a fifth was for Admirals Monk and Montague, to be communicated to the Fleet; and the sixth was to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Councilmen of the City of London. Besides the originals, copies of all were sent to Monk, that he might keep the originals unopened or suppress any of them.¹

It could be an affair now only of a few weeks, more or less. There, at Breda, was his swarthy, witty, good-humoured, utterly profligate and worthless, young Majesty, with his refugee courtiers round him; at home, over all Britain and Ireland, they were ready for him, longing for him, huzzahing for him, Monk and the Council managing silently in London; and between, as a moveable bridge, there was Montague and his fleet. When would the bridge move towards the Continent? That would depend on the newly-elected Parliament, which was to meet on the 25th. Could there be any mischance in the meantime?

It did not seem so. The late politicians of the Rump were dispersed and powerless. Hasilrig sat by himself in London, moaning "We are undone: we are undone"; Scott was in Buckinghamshire, if perchance they might elect him for Wycombe: Ludlow hid in Wiltshire and Somersetshire, also nominated for a seat, but careless about it; the rest absconded one knows not where. The "Fanatics," as the Republican Sectaries were now called collectively, were silenced and overwhelmed. Even Mr. Praise-God Barebone, tired of having his windows broken, was under written engagement to the Council to keep himself quiet. The same written engagement had been exacted from Hasilrig and Scott.—But what of the Army, the original maker of the Commonwealth, its defender and preserver through good report and bad report for eleven years, and with strength surely to maintain it yet, or make a stand in its behalf? The question is rather difficult. It may be granted that something of the general exhaustion, the fatigue and weariness of incessant change, the longing to be at rest by any means, had come upon the Army itself. Not the less true is it that Republicanism was yet the general creed of the Army, and that, could a universal vote have been taken through the regiments in England, Scotland, and Ireland, it would have kept out Charles Stuart. Nay, so engrained was the Republican feeling in the ranks of the soldiery, and so gloomily were they watching Monk, that, could any suitable proportion of them have been brought together, and could any fit leader have been present to hold up his sword for the Commonwealth, they would have rallied round him with acclamations. Precisely to prevent this, however, had been Monk's care. One remembers his advice from Scotland to Richard Cromwell nineteen months ago, when Richard was entering on his Protectorate. It was to cashier boldly. Not an officer in the Army, he had said, would have interest enough, if he were once cashiered, to draw two men after him in opposition to any existing Government. The very soul of Monk lies in that maxim, and he had been acting on it himself. Not only, as we have seen, had he reofficered his own army in Scotland with the utmost pains before venturing on his march into England; but, since his coming into England, he had still been discharging officers, and appointing or promoting others. He had done so while still conducting himself as the servant of the Restored Rump; and he had done so again very particularly after he had become Commander-in-chief for the Parliament of the Secluded Members. The consequence was most apparent in that portion of the Army which was more especially his own, consisting of the regiments he had brought from Scotland, and that were now round him in London. The officers—Knight, Read, Clobery, Hubblethorn, &c.—were all men accustomed to Monk, or of his latest choosing. His difficulty had been greater with the many dispersed regiments away from London, once Fleetwood's and Lambert's. Not only was there no bond of attachment between them and Monk; they were full of bitterness against him, as an interloper from Scotland who had put them to disgrace, and had turned some of them out of London to make room for his own men. But with these also Monk had taken his measures. Besides quartering them in the manner likeliest to prevent harm, he had done not a little among them too by discharges and new appointments. One of his own colonels, Charles Fairfax, had been left at York; Colonel Rich's regiment had been given to Ingoldsby; Walton's regiment to Viscount Howard; a Colonel Carter had been made Governor of Beaumaris, with command in Denbighshire; the Republican Overton had been removed from the Governorship of Hull; Mr. Morrice had been converted into a soldier, and made Governor of Plymouth; Dr. Clarges was Commissary General of the Musters for England, Scotland, and Ireland; and colonelcies were found for Montague, Rossiter, Sheffield, and Lord Falconbridge. When it is remembered that Fleetwood, Lambert, Desborough, Berry, Kelsay, and others of the old officers, Rumpers or Wallingford-House men, were already incapacitated, and either in prison or under parole to the Council of State, it will be seen that the English Army of April 1660 was no longer its former self. There were actually Royalists now among the colonels, men in negotiation with the King as Monk himself was. Still, if Monk and these colonels had even now gone before most of the regiments and announced openly that they meant to bring in the King, they would have been hooted or torn in pieces. Even in colloquies with the officers of his own London regiments Monk had to keep up the Republican phraseology. Suspicions having arisen among them, with meetings and agitations, his plan had been to calm them by general assurances, reminding them at the same time of that principle of the submission of the military to the civil authority which he and they had accepted. On this principle alone, and without a word implying desertion, of the Commonwealth, he prohibited any more meetings or agitations, and caused strict orders to that effect from the Council of State to be read at the head of every regiment. But an ingenious device of Clarges went further than such prohibitions. It was that as many of the officers as possible should be got to sign a declaration of their submission to the civil authority, not in general terms merely, but in the precise form of an engagement to agitate the question of Government no more among themselves, but abide the decision of the coming Parliament. Many who could not have been brought to declare for Charles Stuart directly could save their consciences by signing a document thus conditionally in his interest; and the device of Clarges was most successful. On the 9th of April a copy of the engagement signed by a large number of officers in or near London was in Monk's hands, and copies were out in England, Scotland, and Ireland, for additional signatures. As to the response from Scotland there could be little doubt. Morgan, the commander-in-chief in Scotland, had already reported the complete submission of the Army there to the order established by the Parliament of the Secluded Members. Only a single captain had been refractory, and he far away in the Orkneys. From Ireland, where Coote and Broghill were now managing, the report was nearly as good. Altogether, by the 9th of April, Monk could regard the Republicanism of the Army as but the stunned and paralysed belief of so many thousands of individual red-coats.—It was no otherwise with the Navy. Moored with his fleet in the Thames, or cruising with it beyond, Montague could assure Pepys in private that he knew most of his captains to be Republicans, and that he was not sure even of the captain of his own ship; and, studying a certain list which Montague had given him, Pepys could observe that the captains Montague was most anxious about were all or nearly all of the Anabaptist persuasion. Still there was no sign of concerted mutiny; and it was a great thing at such a time that Vice-Admiral Lawson, Montague's second in command, and the pre-eminent Republican of the whole Navy, had shown an example of obedience.¹

There was to be one dying flash for the Republic after all. Lambert had escaped from the Tower. It was on the night of April 9, the very day on which Monk was congratulating himself on the engagement of obedience signed by so many of his officers. For some days no one knew where the fugitive had gone, and Monk and the Council of State were in consternation. Proclamations against him were out, forbidding any to harbour him, and offering a reward for his capture. Meanwhile emissaries from Lambert were also out in all directions, to rouse his friends and bring them to a place of rendezvous in Northamptonshire. One of these emissaries, a Major Whitby, found Ludlow in Somersetshire, and delivered Lambert's message to him. Ludlow was not unwilling to join Lambert, but wanted to know more precisely what he declared for. With some passion, Whitby suggested that it was not a time to be asking what a man declared for; it was enough to know what he declared against. Ludlow demurred, and said it was always best to put forth a distinct political programme! He merely circulated the information; therefore, in Somersetshire and adjoining counties, and waited for further light. Along many roads, however, especially in the midland counties, others were straggling to the appointed rendezvous. Discharged soldiers, Anabaptists, Republican desperates of every kind, were flocking to Lambert.—Alas! before many of these could reach Lambert, it was all over. Hither and thither, wherever there were signs of disturbance, Monk had been despatching his most efficient officers; and, on the 18th of April, having received more exact information as to Lambert's whereabouts, he sent off Colonel Richard Ingoldsby to do his very best in that scene of action. There could not have been a happier choice. For this was honest Dick Ingoldsby, the Cromwellian, of whom his kinsman Richard Cromwell had said that, though he could neither preach nor pray, he could be trusted. He was also "Dick Ingoldsby, the Regicide," who had unfortunately signed the death-warrant of Charles I., to please Cromwell; and that recollection was a spur to him now. Since the abdication of Richard, he had been telling people that he would thenceforth serve the King and no one else, even though his Majesty, when he came home, would probably cut off his head. That consequence, however, was to be avoided if possible; and already, since the restoration of the secluded members, Ingoldsby had been doing whatever stroke of work for them might help towards earning his pardon. Now had come his most splendid opportunity, and he was not to let it slip.—On Sunday, the 22nd of April, being Easter Sunday, he came up with Lambert in Northamptonshire, about two miles from Daventry. Lambert had then but seven broken troops of horse, and one foot company; but Colonels Okey, Axtell, Cobbet, Major Creed, and several other important Republican ex-officers, were with him. Ingoldsby had brought his own horse regiment from Suffolk; Colonel Streater, with 500 men of a Northamptonshire foot-regiment, had joined him; the Royalist gentry round were sending in more horse; the country train-bands were up. The battle would be very unequal; was it worth while to fight? For some hours the two bodies stood facing each other, Lambert's in a ploughed field, with a little stream in his front, to which Ingoldsby rode up frequently, parleying with such of Lambert's troopers as were nearest, and so effectively as to bring some of them over. At last, Lambert showing no signs of surrender, Ingoldsby and Streater advanced, Ingoldsby ready to charge with his horse, but Streater marching the foot first with beat of drum to try the effect of a close approach. There was the prelude of a few shots, which hurt one or two of Lambert's troopers; but the orders were that the general fire should be reserved till the musketeers should see the pikemen already within push of the enemy. Then it was not necessary. Lambert's men had been wavering all the while; his troopers now turned the noses of their pistols downwards; one troop came off entire to Ingoldsby; the rest broke up and fled. But Lambert himself was Ingoldsby's mark. Dashing up to him, pistol in hand, he claimed him as his prisoner. There was a kind of scuffle, Creed and others imploring Ingoldsby to let Lambert go; and in the scuffle Lambert turned his horse and made off, Ingoldsby after him at full gallop. They were men of about the same age, neither over forty, but Ingoldsby the stouter and more fearless for a personal encounter. The two horses were abreast, or Ingoldsby's a little ahead, the rider turning round in his seat, with his pistol presented at Lambert, whom he swore he would shoot if he did not yield. Lambert pleaded yet a pitiful word or two, and then reined in and was taken.—On Tuesday, the 24th of April, Lambert was again in the Tower, with Cobbet, Creed, and other prisoners, though Okey and Axtell were not yet among them. There had been a great review of the City Militia that day in Hyde Park, at which the various regiments, red, white, green, blue, yellow, and orange, with the auxiliaries from the suburbs, made the magnificent muster of 12,000 men. The Parliament was to meet next day, and Monk and the Council of State had no farther anxiety. Among the measures they had taken after Lambert's escape had been an order that the engagement, already so generally signed by the Officers, pledging to agreement in whatever Parliament should prescribe as to the future form of government, should be tendered also to the private soldiers throughout the whole army. In the troops and companies of Fleetwood's old regiments, as many as a third of the soldiers, or in some cases a half, were leaving the ranks in consequence; but in Monk's own regiments from Scotland only two sturdy Republicans had stepped out.¹

So sure was the Restoration of Charles now that the only difficulty was in restraining impatience and braggartism among the Royalists themselves. The last argument of the Republican pamphleteers having been that the Royalists would be implacable after they had got back the king, and that nothing was to be then expected but the bloodiest and severest revenges upon all who had been concerned with the Commonwealth, and some of the younger Royalists having given colour to such representations by their wild utterances in private, there had been printed protests to the contrary by leading Royalists in London and in many of the counties. They desired no revenges, they said; they reflected on the past as the mysterious course of an all-wise Providence; they were anxious for an amicable reunion of all in the path so wonderfully opened up by the wisdom and valour of General Monk; they utterly disowned the indiscreet expressions of fools and "hot-spirited persons"; and they would take no steps themselves, but would confide in Monk, the Council of State, and the Parliament, The London "declaration" to this effect was signed by ten earls, four viscounts, five lords, many baronets, knights, and squires, with several Anglican clergymen, among whom was Jeremy Taylor. It was of no small use to Monk, who had equally to be on his guard against too great haste. They were crowding round him now, and asking why there should be any more delay, why the king should not be brought to England at once. His one reply still was that the Parliament alone could decide what was to be done, and that he and others were bound to leave all to the Parliament. Meanwhile Sir John Greenville had been back from his mission for some time, and had duly delivered to Monk the important documents from Breda. Monk had kept Charles's private letter, but had given Greenville back all the rest, including his own commission to be his Majesty's Captain-General. Not a soul was to know of their existence till the moment when they should be produced in the Parliament.¹

CHAPTER II.

First Section.

MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH RICHARD'S PROTECTORATE: SEPT. 1658-MAY 1659.

MILTON AND MARVELL STILL IN THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP: MILTON'S FIRST FIVE STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXXXIII.-CXXXVII.): NEW EDITION OF MILTON'S DEFENSIO PRIMA: REMARKABLE POSTSRCIPT TO THAT EDITION: SIX MORE STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXXXVIII.-CXLIII.): MILTON'S RELATIONS TO THE CONFLICT OF PARTIES ROUND RICHARD AND IN RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT: HIS PROBABLE CAREER BUT FOR HIS BLINDNESS: HIS CONTINUED CROMWELLIANISM IN POLITICS, BUT WITH STRONGER PRIVATE RESERVES, ESPECIALLY ON THE QUESTION OF AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH: HIS REPUTATION THAT OF A MAN OF THE COURT-PARTY AMONG THE PROTECTORATISTS: HIS TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES: ACCOUNT OF THE TREATISE, WITH EXTRACTS: THE TREATISE MORE THAN A PLEA FOR RELIGIOUS TOLERATION: CHURCH-DISESTABLISHMENT THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA: THE TREATISE ADDRESSED TO RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT, AND CHIEFLY TO VANE AND THE REPUBLICANS THERE: NO EFFECT FROM IT: MILTON'S FOUR LAST STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXLIV.-CXLVII.): HIS PRIVATE EPISTLE TO JEAN LABADIE, WITH ACCOUNT OF THAT PERSON: MILTON IN THE MONTH BETWEEN RICHARD'S DISSOLUTION OF HIS PARLIAMENT AND HIS FORMAL ABDICATION: HIS TWO STATE-LETTERS FOR THE RESTORED RUMP (NOS. CXLVIII.-CXLIX.).

Milton and Marvell continued together In the Latin Secretaryship through the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell, The following were the first Letters of Milton for Richard:—

(CXXXIII.) To Louis XIV. OF FRANCE, Sept. 5, 1658:—"Most serene and most potent King, Friend and Confederate: As my most serene Father, of glorious memory, Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, such being the will of Almighty God, has been, removed by death on the 3rd of September, I, his lawfully declared successor in this Government, though in the depth of sadness and grief, cannot but on the very first opportunity inform your Majesty by letter of so important a fact, assured that, as you have been a most cordial friend to my Father and this Commonwealth, the sudden intelligence will be no matter of joy to you either. It is my business now to request your Majesty to think of me as one who has nothing more resolvedly at heart than to cultivate with all fidelity and constancy the alliance and friendship that existed between my most glorious parent and your Majesty, and to keep and hold as valid, with the same diligence and goodwill as himself, the treaties, counsels, and arrangements, of common interest, which he established with you. To which intent I desire that our Ambassador at your Court [Lockhart] shall be invested with the same powers as formerly; and I beg that, whatever he may transact with you in our name, you will receive it as if done by myself. Finally, I wish your Majesty all prosperity.—From our Court at Westminster."

(CXXXIV.) To Cardinal Mazarin, Sept. ⁵, 1658:—Dispatched with the last, and to the same effect. Knowing the reciprocal esteem between his late Father and his Eminence, Richard cannot but write to his Eminence as well as to the King.

(CXXXV.) To Charles Gustavus, King of Sweden. October 1658:—"Most serene and most potent King, Friend and Confederate: As I think I cannot sufficiently imitate my father's excellence unless I cultivate and desire to retain the same friendships which he sought, and acquired by his worth, and regarded in his singular judgment as most deserving to be cultivated and retained, there is no reason for your Majesty to doubt that it will be my duty to conduct myself towards your Majesty with the same attentiveness and goodwill which my Father, of most serene memory, made his rule in his relations to you. Wherefore, although in this beginning of my Government and dignity I do not find our affairs in such a position that I can at present reply to certain heads which your agents have propounded for negotiation, yet the idea of continuing, and even more closely knitting, the treaty established with your Majesty by my Father is exceedingly agreeable to me; and, as soon as I shall have more fully understood the state of affairs on both sides, I shall indeed be always most ready, as far as I am concerned, for such arrangements as shall be thought most advantageous for the interests of both Commonwealths. Meanwhile may God long preserve your Majesty, to His own glory and for the guardianship and defence of the Orthodox Church."—The peculiar state of the relations between the Swedish King and the English Government is here to be remembered. The heroic Swede, by his sudden recommencement of war with Denmark, had brought a host of enemies again around him; and the question, just before Oliver's death, was whether Oliver would consider himself disobliged by the rupture of the Peace with Denmark, which had been mainly of his own making, or whether he would stand by his brother of Sweden and think him still in the right. That the second would have been Oliver's course there can be little doubt. The question had now descended to Richard and his Council. They were anxious to adhere to the foreign policy of the late Protector in the Swedish as in all other matters; but there were difficulties.

(CXXXVI. AND CXXXVII.) To CHARLES GUSTAVUS OF SWEDEN, Oct. 1659:—Two more letters to his Swedish Majesty, following close on the last:—(1) In the first, dated "Oct. 13," Richard acknowledges a letter received from the King of Sweden through his envoy in London, and also a letter from the King to Philip Meadows, the English Resident at the Swedish Court, which Meadows has transmitted. He is deeply sensible of his Swedish Majesty's kind expressions, both of sorrowing regard for his great father's memory, and of goodwill towards himself. There could not be a greater honour to him, or a greater encouragement in the beginning of his government, than the congratulations of such a King. "As respects the relations entered into between your Majesty and Us concerning the common cause of Protestants, I would have your Majesty believe that, since I succeeded to this government, though our Affairs are in such a state as to require the extreme of diligence, care, and vigilance, chiefly at home, yet I have had and still have nothing more sacredly or more deliberately in my mind than not to be wanting, to the utmost of my power, to the Treaty made by my father with your Majesty. I have therefore arranged for sending a fleet into the Baltic Sea, with those commands which our Internuncio [Meadows], whom we have most amply instructed for this whole business, will communicate to your Majesty." This was the fleet of Admiral Lawson, which did not actually put to sea till the following month, and was then wind-bound off the English coast. See ante p. 428; where it is also explained that Sir George Ayscough was to go out with Lawson, to enter the Swedish service as a volunteer.—(2) The other letter to Charles Gustavus, though dated "Oct." merely in the extant copies, was probably written on the same day as the foregoing, and was to introduce this Ayscough. "I send to your Majesty (and cannot send a present of greater worth or excellence) the truly distinguished and truly noble man, George Ayscough, Knight, not only famous and esteemed for his knowledge of war, especially naval war, as proved by his frequent and many brave performances, but also gifted with probity, modesty, ingenuity, and learning, dear to all for the sweetness of his manners, and, what is now the sum of all, eager to serve under the banners of your Majesty, so renowned over the whole world by your warlike prowess." A favourable reception is bespoken for Ayscough, who is to bring certain communications to his Majesty, and who, in any matters that may arise out of these, is to be taken as speaking for Richard himself. It was not till the beginning of the following year that Ayscough did arrive in the Baltic.

These five letters were undoubtedly the most important diplomatic dispatches of the beginning of Richard's Protectorate. They refer to the two most momentous foreign interests bequeathed from Oliver: viz. the French Alliance against Spain, and the entanglement in Northern Europe round the King of Sweden. Milton, as having written all the previous state-letters on these great subjects, was naturally required to be himself the writer of the five in which Richard announced to France and Sweden his resolution to continue the policy of his father. Marvell's pen may have been used, then and afterwards, for minor dispatches.

To the month of October 1658, the month after that of Oliver's death, belongs also a new edition of Milton's Defensio Prima. It was in octavo size, in close and clear type, and bore this title: "Joannis Miltonii, Angli, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio contra Claudii Anonymi, alias Salmasii, Defensionem Regiam. Editio correctior et auctior, ab Autore denuo recognita. Londini, Typis Newcombianis, Anno Dom. 1658" (John Milton's Defence, &c. "Corrected and Enlarged Edition, newly revised by the Author" London: from Newcome's press, &c.).¹ This edition seems to have escaped the notice to which it is entitled. As far as my examination has gone, the differences from the original edition through the body of the work can be but slight. There is, however, a very important postscript of two pages, which I shall here translate:—