Ashley is himself frustrated; cannot obtain this musical glibtongued Lady Mary, says Ludlow; goes over to opposition in consequence; is dismissed from His Highness's Council of State; and has to climb in this world by another ladder. Poor Fanny's marriage did nevertheless take effect. Both Mary and she were duly wedded, Fanny to Rich, Mary to Lord Fauconberg, in November next year, within about a week of each other: 2 our friends, who truly were very few,' and our destinies, and our own lively wits, brought all right in the end.

LETTER CCXIII

It was last Spring Assizes, as we saw, that the 'great appearances of country gentlemen and persons of the highest quality' took place; leading to the inference generally that this Protectorate Government is found worth acknowledging by England. Certainly a somewhat successful Government hitherto; in spite of difficulties great and many. It carries eternal Gospel in the one hand, temporal drawn Sword in the other. Actually it has compressed the turbulent humours of this Country, and encouraged the better tendencies thereof, hitherto; it has set its foot resolutely on the neck of English Anarchy, and points with its armed hand to noble onward and upward paths. All which, England,

1 Here is the passage, not hitherto printed; one of several Suppressed-passages from Ludlow's Memoirs,' which still exist in the handwriting of John Locke (now in the possession of Lord Lovelace), having been duly copied out by Locke for his own poor Life of the Earl of Shaftesbury, to whom they all relate :

'Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who was first for the King, then for the Parliament; then, in Cromwell's first Assembly,' the little Parliament, was 'for the ' reformation; and afterwards for Cromwell against that reformation. Now' again, being denied Cromwell's Daughter Mary in marriage, he appears against 'Cromwell's design in the last Assembly,' the constitutioning Parliament, where his behaviour was none of the best; and is therefore dismissed the Council, Crom'well being resolved to act there as the chief juggler himself; and one Colonel 'Mackworth, a Lawyer about Shrewsbury, a person fit for his purpose, is chosen in his room.'-Mackworth was a soldier as well as Lawyer; the same who, as Governor of Shrewsbury, gave negative response to Charles Second, when he summoned him on the road to Worcester, once upon a time. Mackworth was in the Council, and had even died, and entirely left the Council, before Anthony Ashley left it (Thurloe, iii. 581; and Godwin, iv. 288). My solid friend, absent in Ireland, sulkily breathing the air in Essex, falls into some errors! Court-rumour, this of his; truth in the heart of it, details rather vague;-not much worth verifying or rectifying here. [The above passage is in Firth's Ludlow, vol. i. xxi.]

2 Vol. i. p. 63.

thankful at lowest for peace and order, by degrees recognises ; with acquiescence, not without some slow satisfactory feeling. England is in peace at home; stands as the Queen of Protestantism abroad; defies Spain and Antichrist,1 protects poor Piedmont Protestants and servants of Christ;-has taken, all men admit, a nobler attitude than it ever had before.

Nor has the task been easy hitherto; nor is it like to be. No holiday work, governing such an England as this of Oliver Protector's; with strong Papistry abroad, and a Hydra of Anarchies at home! The domestic Hydra is not slain; cannot, by the nature of it, be slain; can only be scotched and mowed down, head after head, as it successively protrudes itself;-till, by the aid of Time, it slowly die. As yet, on any hint of foreign encouragement it revives again, requires to be scotched and mowed down again. His exiled Majesty Charles Stuart has got a new lever in hand, by means of this War with Spain.

Seven years ago his exiled Majesty's 'Embassy to Spain,' embassy managed by Chancellor Hyde and another, proved rather a hungry affair; and ended, I think, in little,-except the murder of poor Ascham, the then Parliament's Envoy at Madrid; whom, like Dutch Dorislaus, as 'an accursed regicide or abettor of regicides,' certain cut-throat servants of the said hungry Embassy broke-in upon, one afternoon, and slew. For which violent deed no full satisfaction could be got from Spain, the murderers having taken 'sanctuary,' as was pleaded. With that rather sorry result, and no other noticeable, Chancellor Hyde's Embassy took itself away again; Spain ordering it to go. But now, this fierce Protestant Protector breathing nothing but war, Spain finds that the English domestic Hydra, if well operated upon by Charles Stuart, might be a useful thing; and grants Charles Stuart some encouragements for that. His poor Majesty is coming to the seashore again; is to have Seven-thousand Spaniards to invade England,—if the domestic Hydra will stir with effect. The domestic Hydra, I think, had better lie quiet for a while! This Letter to Henry Cromwell is to bid him too, for his part, be awake in Ireland to these things.

1

For the Hydra is not dead; and its heads are legion. Major

1 [See letter to the Commanders in Jamaica, Supplement, No. 119. "We could not satisfy ourselves to desert this cause . . . but are resolved in His [God's] fear to prosecute the same."]

2 Clarendon, iii. 498-509; Process and Pleadings in the Court of Spain upon the Death of Anthony Ascham (in Harl. Miscell., vi. 236-47).

Wildman, for example, sits safe in Chepstow but Sexby, the Anabaptist Colonel, whom we could not take on that occasion, is still busy; has been trying to seduce the Fleet,' trying to do this and that; is now fairly gone to Spain, to treat with Antichrist himself for the purpose of bringing-in a Reign of Christ,the truly desperate Anabaptist Colonel! It is a Hydra like few. Spiritual and Practical: Muggletonians, mad Quakers riding into Bristol, Fifth-Monarchists, Hungry Flunkeys: ever scheming, plotting with or without hope, to seduce the Protector's Guard,' 'to blow up the Protector in his bed-room,' and do "other little fiddling things," as the Protector calls them,— which one cannot waste time in specifying! Only the slow course of nature can kill that Hydra: till a Colonel Sexby die, how can you keep him quiet?—

But what doubtless gives new vitality to plotting, in these weeks, is the fact that a General Election to Parliament is going on. There is to be a new Parliament;-in which may lie who knows what contentions. The Protector lost it last time, by the arithmetical account of heads; will he gain it this time? Account of heads is not exactly the Protector's basis; but he hopes he may now gain it even so. At all events, this wide foreign and domestic Spanish War cannot be carried on without supplies; he will first try it so, then otherwise if not so.2

To Henry Cromwell, Major-General of the Army in Ireland' 'Whitehall,' 26th August 1656.

SON HARRY,

We are informed, from several hands, that the old enemy are forming designs to invade Ireland, as well as other parts of the Commonwealth; and that he and Spain have very great correspondence with some chief men in that nation, for raising a sudden rebellion there.

Wherefore we judge it very necessary that you take all possible care to put the Forces into such a condition as may answer

1 Clarendon, iii. 852; Thurloe, iv. 698, etc.

2[Bordeaux did not believe that the Protector's aim was so much to obtain the supplies necessary to carry on the war, as to augment his power, "qui ne peut estre légitimé jusques à ce que le peuple representé par ce corps l'ayt recogneu par un acte authentique." Bordeaux to Brienne, French Transcripts, Public Record Office.]

anything which may fall out of this kind, and to that end, that you contract the Garrisons in Ireland, as much as may be; and get a considerable marching army into the field, in two or three bodies, to be laid in the most proper and advantageous places for service, as occasion shall require. Taking also, in all other things, the best care you can to break and prevent the designs and combinations of the enemy;—and a very particular regard is to be had to the North, where, without question, busy and discontented persons are working towards new disturbances. I do not doubt but you will communicate these things to Colonel Cowper, to the end he may be the more watchful and diligent in looking to his charge. I rest, your loving father,

OLIVER P.*

'Colonel Cowper' commands the Forces in Ulster. Plenty of details about him in Thurloe's Fourth Volume:—our readers can sufficiently conceive him without details. We are more interested to state, from a Letter of Thurloe's which goes along with this, that there are 'Fourteen Spanish ships plying about the Isle of Islay,' doubtless with an eye to Carrickfergus; that we hope, and indeed believe, my Lord Henry will be on the alert. For the rest, the Elections are going well; all 'for peace and settlement,' as we hear, and great friends to the Government." Ashley

*Sloane MSS., 4157, f. 209; [Now f. 88. Draft in Thurloe's hand] and (with insignificant variations) Thurloe, v. 348. [There were several small misprints in Carlyle's text of this letter. The most noticeable was that he printed “looking to this danger" instead of “looking to his charge," in the last line.]

[Bordeaux says a good deal concerning the arrangements for the elections, but his statements, being those of a foreigner, must always be received with some caution. His information appears to have been chiefly obtained from a member of parliament "very powerful with the republican party," and (as he tells us later) a connexion of the leader who would fain step into Cromwell's place (i.e. Lambert). Writing to Brienne on August 20-30, he says that the Protector is taking all possible precautions in the choice of members: "ceux de Londres," he continues, "sont de differentes factions; le peuple de Westminster n'a pas esté si complaisant qu'il n'ayt fallu mestre des soldatz avec les Bourgeois, pour appuyer ses amis et esclore ses ennemis. L'on ne peut encore sçavoir l'eslection des autres villes et provinces, mais les dispositions n'en etoient pas favorables, et le Conseil d'Etat s'est occupé tous ces jours a exhorter ceux qui avoient esté mandez." On Sept. 1-11, he announces that the greater number of the members appear well disposed towards the government, but that "ce n'a pas été sans quelque obstacle et mesme sans combat que les Majors-Généraux et Baillifs de province ont faict faire cet election. Il y eust en quelque lieu du monde de tuez,

Cooper, indeed, has been chosen for Wilts: but, on the other hand, Bradshaw has missed in Cheshire; Sir Henry Vane has tried in three places and missed in all. This is of date 26th August 1656; poor England universally sifting itself; trying what the arithmetical account of heads will do for it, once more.

LETTER CCXIV

THE Portugal has done justice; reluctantly aware at last that jesuitries would not serve him.2 The Spaniards, again, cower close within their harbours; patient of every insult; no ship will venture out, and no Plate Fleet will come in and as for ' attempting Cadiz or Gibraltar,' the Sea-Generals, after mature survey, decide that without other force it cannot prudently be done. This is what Montague, with his clear eyes, has had to report to Secretary Thurloe on the latter enterprise: "I perceive much "desire that Gibraltar should be taken. My thoughts as to that are, in short, these: That the likeliest way to get it is, By land'ing on the sand, and quickly cutting it off between sea and sea, "or so to secure our men there as that they may hinder the "intercourse of the Town with the Main; frigates lying near, "too, to assist them :-and it is well known that Spain never "victualleth any place for one month. This will want Four or "Five thousand men, well formed and officered.-This is my own "only thought which I submit, at present." 3

66

Whereupon the Lord Protector sends the following Orders; one other Sea Letter of his which we happen to have left. Mainly of Thurloe's composition, I perceive; but worth preserving on various

accounts.

en d'autres le peuple professe un publicq mépris des personnes qui lui estoient recommandées; mais beaucoup de villes ont usé de déférance, et si ceux qui passent pour amis du Protecteur demeurent fermes dans ses interests, leurs voix prévauldront sur celles de ses ennemis, qui ne doivent pas néantmoins estre négligez". French Transcripts, Public Record Office.]

1 Thurloe to Henry Cromwell, date 26th Aug. (v. 349).

2 Meadows to Blake and Montague, 13th May 1656: Thurloe, v. 14;-see ib. 69, 116, and 118 (the Portugal's Letter to Oliver, 24th June 1656. N.S.)

Montague to Thurloe, in cipher, 20th April to 29th May 1656 (Thurloe, v. 6770), 'received by Captain Lloyd, who arrived here 11th July,'-and has brought other Letters, joint Letters from the Generals, of somewhat later date, as we shall perceive.